The Art of Making Memories by Meik Wiking (Review)

Title: The Art of Making Memories
Author: Meik Wiking
Type: Nonfiction
Genre: Self Help, Psychology,
Personal Development, Travel
Publisher: Penguin Life
(Penguin Random House)
Date published: October 1, 2019

A physical copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Every year, we are given a fixed number of days. Some days pass us by without leaving a trace and some days we remember forever.

Do you remember your first kiss? Or how the first rays of the spring sun feel? Or how about the best meal you ever had?These memorable experiences are characterized by intensity of perception, depth of feeling, or sense of profound significance causing them to stand out in our mind and involve a heightened sense of wonder and awe.

But what ingredients produce these happy memories? Why is it that a piece of music, a smell, a taste can take us back to something we had forgotten? And can we learn to create happy memories and be better at holding on to them?

Combining research on happiness and mnemonics (learning techniques that aids memory retention or retrieval) Meik Wiking explores how peak experiences are made, stored and remembered. Using data and diaries, interviews, global surveys and studies, and conducting real-life behavioural science and happiness experiments, The Happiness Research Institute will answer how we can we create perfect moments. Moments that will go down in history. Moments that will shape who we are.

⤖ My Review ⬻

Some of my may have seen my review for The Little Book of Hygge and The Little Book of Lykke back in early 2018 and will know that I absolutely love Meik Wiking’s work! I had to say that The Little Book of Hygge still remains my favourite, but that I also really love both The Little Book of Lykke and his most recent book, The Art of Making Memories, as well. I really liked that Wiking and his publisher continue to format these books the same (size-wise and style) so that I can line them up together nicely on my shelf.

Since I love to travel and also love to take photos, this book was perfect for me! I’m also trying to work on perfecting my memory, and there were lots of tips on how to do that in The Art of Making Memories, I found this book to be very very useful! Additional to tips and some great photographic pieces by Wiking, the book also included case studies and examples that were very helpful and quite interesting to read! And finally, what I found to be the best part of all, after sharing all of his knowledge about making memories, Wiking finished things off with a way to take action on what he advised! This is a great book, and I definitely recommend it as well as Wiking’s other books!

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Meik Wiking is CEO of the Happiness Research Institute, research associate for Denmark at the World Database of Happiness, and founding member of the Latin American Network for Wellbeing and Quality of Life Policies. He and his research have been featured in more than five hundred media outlets, including The Washington Post, BBC, Huffington Post, the Times (London), The Guardian, CBS, Monocle, the Atlantic, and PBS News Hour. He has spoken at TEDx, and his books have been translated into more than fifteen languages. He lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.