Incredible true stories reveal strange new magic in American history in this wondrous first book from the creator of the award-winning podcast The Memory Palace.
“One doesn’t often find the words imagination and history in the same sentence. Nate DiMeo has forever woven them together. The Memory Palace wants you to linger, to stay awhile, and find a deeper meaning both in the stories of the past and perhaps in your own life as well.”—Ken Burns
The Memory Palace is a collection of crystalline historical tales that read like luminous short fiction and, like Nate DiMeo’s acclaimed podcast of the same name, conjure lost moments and forgotten figures who are calling out across time to be remembered.
Space capsules filled with fruit flies and future senators. A socialite scientist who gives up her glamorous life to follow love and the elusive prairie chicken. A boy genius on a path to change the world who gets lost in the theoretical possibilities of streetcar transfers. An enslaved man who steals a boat and charts a course that leads him to freedom, war, and Congress. A farmer’s wife who puts down her butter churn, picks up the butter, and becomes an international art star. An amusement park glowing at the water’s edge when electric lights are a brand-new thing. This cabinet of curiosities teems with wonder.
For fifteen years, Nate DiMeo has turned to the past to make sense of the way we live today, finding beauty and meaning in history’s dustier corners, holding things up to the light and weaving facts, keen insight, wit, and poignant observation into unforgettable tales. With new stories and treasured favorites from the beloved podcast, enchantment awaits you.
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"One doesn’t often find the words imagination and history in the same sentence. Nate DiMeo has forever woven them together. He asks each of us to engage in an act of empathetic imagination, to see in the stories of others—people who lived before us—something inherently human, something that transcends time and provides us with a feeling of understanding and, quite often, joy. The Memory Place wants you to linger, to stay awhile, and find a deeper meaning both in the stories of the past and perhaps in your own life as well."
— Ken Burns, filmmaker
One doesn’t often find the words imagination and history in the same sentence. Nate DiMeo has forever woven them together. He asks each of us to engage in an act of empathetic imagination, to see in the stories of others, people who lived before us, something inherently human, something that transcends time and provides us with a feeling of understanding and, quite often, joy. The Memory Place wants you to linger, to stay awhile, and find a deeper meaning both in the stories of the past and perhaps in your own life as well.
— Ken Burns, filmmakerNate DiMeo delves through history with a poet’s eye, recovering the strange and revealing and even wonderful detritus of our past and reflecting on it in profound ways. The Memory Palace is a beautiful, moving, and often funny book made out of our collective history and DiMeo’s unique sensibility.
— Phil Klay, National Book Award–winning author of MissionariesNate DiMeo has an uncanny ability to describe these small, beautiful moments in history that will delight your curiosity, elucidate our shared humanity, and maybe even break your heart. The short, perfect stories of The Memory Palace will stick with you.
— Roman Mars, author of The 99% Invisible CityI love Nate Dimeo’s singular gift for uncovering small stories about very big things. The Memory Palace is like an impeccably curated museum of humanity, shown in all its weird, sad, gleeful, and idiosyncratic glory.
— Jon Mooallem, author of Serious FaceThe only problem with The Memory Palace—an incredible book, executed beautifully—is that for months after you read it you will repeat the stories to everyone you meet, everywhere you go. Nate DiMeo has magically curated American history and unearthed dozens of incredible stories, every one a pure delight, and written about them the way only he can—with humor, passion, and poetry. This is a book everyone in your life will love and cherish.
— Michael Schur, author of How to Be Perfect and creator of The Good PlaceI love Nate DiMeo’s singular gift for uncovering small stories about very big things. The Memory Palace is like an impeccably curated museum of humanity, shown in all its weird, sad, gleeful, and idiosyncratic glory.
— Jon Mooallem, author of Serious FaceBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!