Book Review: 'Memory: Simple, Easy, and Fun Ways to Improve Memory'

(C) Kam Knight and Amazon Publishing

Kam Knight's Memory: Simple, Easy, and Fun Ways to Improve Memory is dedicated to the process of "exercising" our memory in order to maintain our ability to register, store and retrieve information. Its multitude of chapters provide readers with various techniques - including repetition, maintaining (or even creating) interest in the topic or concept you want to remember, visualizing, the use of positive reinforcement and even dietary suggestions to keep the body-mind combination healthy and able to work properly.

It tells us, for instance, that the brain and the body have distinct ways of storing and retrieving information, and that various methods are needed in order to enhance memory. It also tells us how repetition - a term which is often associated with boredom and lack of imagination - is actually a crucial element of memory enhancement: "You can use repetition to memorize any number of tasks and skills. To memorize new responsibilities at work, perform them several times. If you are learning to drive a car, go through the steps of checking the rear view mirror, breaking, putting the car in gear, pressing the gas, and steering several times before turning the ignition. Whether you are a white or blue collar worker, an athlete or artist, a student or caregiver, when you are presented with a new task to memorize, repeat it often."

Though part of the book is about how and why memory works, the author delves deeply into the topic of how memory can be enhanced, particularly by the use of active methods such as associations - which often involves connecting something you wish to remember to something that you are already familiar with - and the employment of acrostics and acronyms. (A good example of an acrostic, according to the book, is "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nuts," which takes the first letter of each of the names of our solar system's eight planets and uses it to form eight words that form a sentence to help us remember the names Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. (Interestingly, this trick actually jogged an old memory about the acrostic I was taught in order to remember the nine planets of the solar system: "Matilda Visits Every Monday, Just Stays Until Noon, Period." (The "Period," of course, stands for Pluto, which several years ago was re-categorized as a dwarf planet.)

Knight  explains both the concepts of memory and the techniques to maintain or enhance it in a clear and concise manner. He takes complex subjects and makes them understandable and interesting, which is a good approach for a writer to take since we all have memory issues of some kind. His prose is crisp and his tone is both authoritative and helpful, two very important traits that make Memory: Simple, Easy, and Fun Ways to Improve Memory a valuable resource to a wide range of readers.