Praised as the "bestest travel guide ever" (Mary Roach) and "a joy to read and reread" (Neil Gaiman), Atlas Obscura is a phenomenon of travel books: "Odds are you won't get past three pages without being amazed" (San Francisco Chronicle). It rocketed to the top of bestseller lists and has over 626,000 copies in print since its publication in late 2016. Now the best gets better and the weirdest gets weirder with this completely revised and updated second edition that includes 120 new entries that offer readers even more of the most unusual, curious, bizarre, and mysterious places on earth. In addition, the second edition includes a full-colour gatefold Atlas Obscura road trip map, with a dream itinerary. Created by the founders of AtlasObscura.com, the vibrant travel community that's grown substantially since the original edition - not only online but in stores, too, with the recent publication of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Atlas Obscura Explorer's Guide for the World's Most Adventurous Kid - Atlas Obscura expands the reader's sense of what's possible. Oversized, beautifully packaged, compellingly written, scrupulously researched, and filled with photographs, illustrations, maps, charts, and more, it is the book that inspires equal parts wonder and wanderlust. It informs us on every page of something we never knew - and paints a rich panorama of what a marvellously strange world we live in. For the travel lover and curious reader, it's a gift book that's literally impossible to put down.

An instant bestseller that is poised to become a classic, "Moonwalking with Einstein" recounts 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.

Boxed set includes bestselling travel adventure titles Atlas Obscura and Gastro Obscura.

Foer's unlikely journey from chronically forgetful science journalist to U.S. Memory Champion frames a revelatory exploration of the vast, hidden impact of memory on every aspect of our lives.
On average, people squander forty days annually compensating for things they've forgotten. Joshua Foer used to be one of those people. But after a year of memory training, he found himself in the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship. Even more important, Foer found a vital truth we too often forget: In every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.
"Moonwalking with Einstein" draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of memory, and venerable tricks of the mentalist's trade to transform our understanding of human remembering. Under the tutelage of top "mental athletes," he learns ancient techniques once employed by Cicero to memorize his speeches and by Medieval scholars to memorize entire books. Using methods that have been largely forgotten, Foer discovers that we can all dramatically improve our memories.
Immersing himself obsessively in a quirky subculture of competitive memorizers, Foer learns to apply techniques that call on imagination as much as determination-showing that memorization can be anything but rote. From the PAO system, which converts numbers into lurid images, to the memory palace, in which memories are stored in the rooms of imaginary structures, Foer's experience shows that the World Memory Championships are less a test of memory than of perseverance and creativity.
Foer takes his inquiry well beyond the arena of mental athletes-across the country and deep into his own mind. In San Diego, he meets an affable old man with one of the most severe case of amnesia on record, where he learns that memory is at once more elusive and more reliable than we might think. In Salt Lake City, he swaps secrets with a savant who claims to have memorized more than nine thousand books. At a high school in the South Bronx, he finds a history teacher using twenty- five-hundred-year-old memory techniques to give his students an edge in the state Regents exam.
At a time when electronic devices have all but rendered our individual memories obsolete, Foer's bid to resurrect the forgotten art of remembering becomes an urgent quest. "Moonwalking with Einstein" brings Joshua Foer to the apex of the U.S. Memory Championship and readers to a profound appreciation of a gift we all possess but that too often slips our minds.

'Be prepared to be amazed' Guardian Can anyone get a perfect memory? Joshua Foer used to be like most of us, forgetting phone numbers and mislaying keys. Then he learnt the art of memory training, and a year later found himself in the finals of the US Memory Championship. He also discovered a truth we often forget: that, even in an age of technology, memory is the key to everything we are. In Moonwalking with Einstein he takes us on an astonishing journey through the mind, from ancient 'memory palace' techniques to neuroscience, from the man who can recall nine thousand books to another who constantly forgets who he is. In doing so, Foer shows how we can all improve our memories. 'Captivating ... engaging ... smart and funny' The New York Times 'Delightful ... uplifting ... it shows that our minds can do extraordinary things' Wall Street Journal 'Great fun ... a book worth remembering' Independent 'A lovely exploration of the ways that we preserve our lives and our world in the golden amber of human memory' New Scientist