Why remembering everything is overrated

I spent a year reading Stalin, LBJ and the history of oil — and recall almost none of it

A small snippet of Grandma’s biography collection (Jack Kessler)

I’m part way through a biography of former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping¹ and I’m really paying attention. Who was purged and by whom, how many died when, what was the result of this particular self-criticism? There will be no end-of-year exams — it’s just that I recently became aware I don’t remember much of anything I read.

This unpleasant realisation (as well as the Deng book recommendation) was prompted by Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal. And it got me thinking. Of the biographies and broader non-fiction books I’ve read over the last year or so, my reflections are:

• Stalin, Vols I & II by Stephen Kotkin — Joseph Stalin murdered a lot of people, collectivisation of agriculture was bad

• The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro — LBJ was somewhat corrupt and a seemingly typical Southern senator who ultimately did great things with power

• The Warrior by Christopher Clarey — Rafael Nadal was good at tennis, particularly on clay

• Truss at 10 by Anthony Seldon and Jonathan Meakin — Liz Truss was not a terribly successful prime minister

• Character Limit by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac — Elon Musk is not a wholly benign force in business, politics or media

• The Power Broker by Robert Caro — Robert Moses acquired vast power and built a lot of roads

• The Prize by Daniel Yergin — oil has been geopolitically significant

I could go on. The point is, I knew all these things before reading the books. Asking now what I learned is like asking a surly teenager what they did today, only for them to reply — in a tone suggesting you may be the stupidest person ever to have lived — “stuff”. Thanks, Benjamin.