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, discovering the mnemonic ancient ‘memory palace’ technique first practiced by Simonides of Ceos over 2,500 years ago.

And only year later, Foer found himself in the finals of the US Memory Championships, alongside ‘mental athletes’ who could memorise the precise order of ten shuffled decks of cards in under an hour.

From the man who can recall nine thousand books to another who constantly forgets who he is, from the ancient world to the cutting edge of neuroscience, Joshua Foer discovers a truth we often forget: that memory is the key to everything we are.