[2] Foer describes his book as participatory journalism in the world of competitive memorization and attempts to delineate the capacity of the human mind.

[1] He also discovers self-promotional forum posts advertising "mind power and advanced memory skills" courses as well as psychic phone readings (the latter under the pseudonym "Daniel Andersson").

The following year I passed my GCSEs with some of the year's best results and subsequently performed well at A-level, mastering French and German along the way with the help of these tried-and-tested techniques ... My obsession with the sport grew, and following months of strenuous training and hard work I climbed into the World's Top-5 rated memory sportsmen.Foer interviews Tammet on several occasions over the course of several weeks, during which he confronts him with the forum posts.

"[4] Alexandra Horowitz for the New York Times called the book "engaging", though she does take issue with how Foer "inexplicably" attacks Daniel Tammet.

[6] Peter Conrad in The Observer dismissed Foer's account as reality TV in book form, stating: "After performing the tricks required of him, he is ushered off into oblivion; by telling the story all over again five years later, he is hoping to prolong his meagre allocation of fame and persuade the world to remember his name.

"[7] Elizabeth Loftus, writing in the Wall Street Journal, called the book "uplifting", saying that "It shows that with motivation, focus and a few clever tricks, our minds can do rather extraordinary things.