Nate Shivar

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Books

Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer Book Review

By Nate Shivar

I’ve never thought of memory as skill until I read Moonwalking With Einstein.

The book is Joshua Foer’s exploration into not only mnemonics, but also the subculture of “memory athletes,” and his adventure in experimental journalism where he goes from covering the US Memory Championships (yes, there is such a thing) to participating in – and winning the following year.

It turns out that memory, like pretty near 100% of human skills, is influenced and developed not by genetics or “talent,” but by deliberate, and consistent practice (a hypothesis repeatedly proven by longitudinal research, dedicated researchers, and explained by this excellent book).

And Joshua Foer proves it with his journey from regular forgetful guy to being able to memorize a full decks of playing cards, dozens of random names and numbers, and lists of hundreds of random words.

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Books Read in 2013

By Nate Shivar

From 2007 to 2012, I read 263+ books. But I did not stop there. I haven’t kept up the same pace – but have kept on tracking every book I’ve read since. Ideally, I’ve also written a short lessons learned or review of each. Here’s the books I’ve read this past year.

*all the links below go to Amazon for convenience, but I definitely recommend purchasing books from Alibris. They support local booksellers, and often have even better used pricing.

This post covers books read in 2013. You can also read from,

2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | Most Recent Full Reviews

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What I Learned Reading 263+ Books In 5 Years | Part 1 | 2007

By Nate Shivar

Last week I read a post by Julien Smith called “Lessons I Learned Reading Over 200 Books.” It was really fascinating and well done. I was quite jealous.

But then I realized, “wait, I’ve done that.”

Since January of 2007, I’ve read about 263 books. I say “about” because I was only half keeping track until September 2008 – when I converted to a spreadsheet and really started tracking.

I’ve decided to start reviewing (nearly) every book I read here. And that means getting caught up.

Unlike Julien (who put everything in 1 ridiculously long post), I’m going to split mine up into 6 ridiculously long blog posts (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012). I’ll also keep going after this initial push to 2013 and beyond.

2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | Most Recent Full Reviews

I’m just going to write a couple sentences for each – and only what I remember about the book, and a short bit of review.

Here we go…

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