Joshua Foer
Personal life Foer is the younger brother of New Republic editor Franklin Foer and novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. He is the son of Esther Foer, president of a public relations firm, and Albert Foer, a think-tank president. He was born in Washington, D.C. and attended Georgetown Day School. He then went on to graduate from Yale University, where he lived in Silliman College, in 2004. Foer is married to Dinah Herlands, a medical student at Yale, whom he met while an undergraduate at Yale. Career Foer sold his first book, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, to Penguin for publication in March 2011. He received a $1.2 million advance for the concept when he was just 22 plus a movie option. In 2006, Foer won the U.S.A. Memory Championship "speed cards" event by memorizing a deck of 52 cards in 1 minute and 40 seconds. Moonwalking with Einstein describes Foer's journey as a participatory journalist to becoming a national champion mnemonist, under the tutelage of British Grand_Master_of_Memory, Ed Cooke. Foer's work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, and The Nation. In 2007, the quarterly art & culture journal Cabinet began publishing Foer's column "A Minor History Of." The column "examines an overlooked cultural phenomenon using a timeline." Organizations Foer has organized several websites and organizations based on his interests. He created the Athanasius Kircher Society which had only one session featuring Kim Peek and Joseph Kittinger.". He is the co-founder, along with Dylan Thuras, of the Atlas Obscura, an online compendium of "The World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica". He is also a co-organizer of Sukkah City.
5 Books Written
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
by Joshua Foer
Rating: 4.0 ⭐
• 7 recommendations ❤️
The blockbuster phenomenon that charts an amazing journey of the mind while revolutionizing our concept of memory“Highly entertaining.” —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker“Funny, curious, erudite, and full of useful details about ancient techniques of training memory.” — The Boston GlobeAn instant bestseller that has now become a classic, Moonwalking with Einstein recounts Joshua Foer's yearlong quest to improve his memory under the tutelage of top "mental athletes." He draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of remembering, and venerable tricks of the mentalist's trade to transform our understanding of human memory. From the United States Memory Championship to deep within the author's own mind, this is an electrifying work of journalism that reminds us that, in every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.
Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders
by Joshua Foer
Rating: 4.2 ⭐
• 2 recommendations ❤️
Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, Atlas Obscura celebrates over 600 of the most curious and unusual destinations around the globe.Here are natural wonders – the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobob tree in South Africa that’s so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can drink comfortably. Architectural marvels, including the M. C. Escher-like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, where men dressed as devils vault over rows of squirming infants.Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan’s 45-year hole of fire called the Door to Hell, hanging coffins suspended off a cliff face in the Philippines, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England.More cabinet of curiosities than traditional guidebook, Atlas Obscura revels in the unexpected, the overlooked, the bizarre, and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, and maps for every region of the world, it is a book you can open anywhere. But with caution: It’s almost impossible not to turn to the next entry, and the next, and the next.Let your curiosity be your compass.
From the creative minds behind the #1 New York Times bestseller Atlas Obscura comes a road trip into the hidden heart of America—a love letter to the strange, fantastic, and beautiful corners of the United States.America Obscura takes readers on a journey that stretches from shore to shore, in search of the country’s folk rituals and roadside museums, its outsider artists and eccentric prophets, its forgotten dreamers and improbable visionaries who helped shape the landscape. Equal parts travel companion and cultural almanac, this is the definitive field guide to America’s hidden marvels. Start in Talkeetna, Alaska, where the whimsical 185-foot “Dr. Seuss House” stacks story upon story into the clouds, and watch the moon-driven bore tide of Turnagain Arm roll in like a liquid wall for sub-arctic surfers. Head south to Colorado to visit the International Snow Sculpture Championships, and then drift across the Great Plains to tour the world’s largest collection of marbles in Nebraska. In New York, meet a ghostly white deer herd that roams a decommissioned nuclear weapons repository, and in Arizona dine at a pizza shop that also hosts concerts on a 6,000-pipe Wurlitzer organ. With hundreds of breathtaking photographs, maps, and sample road trips, America Obscura is a vividly illustrated cabinet of curiosities from the award-winning chroniclers of the world’s hidden wonders that revels in the unexpected, the overlooked, the bizarre, and the mysteriously awe-inspiring. Pack your bags and prepare to be delighted and disoriented, pulled out of the familiar, and dropped into the astonishing as you become re-enchanted with this endlessly curious and surprising country.