i.Chapter one
Lucid.
A biography of Lucy Avery — world memory champion, three-time Mind Sport gold, holder of the longest-recall record in the modern era. Forty-thousand digits, rehearsed in a single sitting, on a Tuesday in March.
Authored by the editorial desk · MMXXVI
ii.Chapter two
The Memory
Palace.
Lucy's method began on the staircase of her childhood home in Salisbury. Each riser was assigned a fact, each landing a year. By the time she could climb the stairs in her sleep, she could climb a thousand other staircases in her sleep too — one for every subject she would ever need to remember.
"You don't remember things," she told the BBC in 2019. "You place them. The mind is a house, and the house has rooms, and the rooms have walls, and on the walls you hang the things you wish to keep."
iii.Chapter three
What she remembers.
- 2019 First place · World Memory Championship London, 14 events, gold medal
- 2021 Longest spoken-word recall · 40,003 digits of π Verified, Royal Society of Mind Sport
- 2023 Defended the championship Beijing, eleven hours of competition, no error
- 2024 Eighty-seven decks of cards in a single sitting Three minutes per deck, recall verified card by card
- 2025 First memory athlete on the cover of Time November issue, photograph by Annie Leibovitz
iv.Chapter four
“Six hours a day, every day, for fourteen years. People ask if it's lonely — the answer is that I am never alone in my own head. Every memory I have ever placed is still standing exactly where I left it.”
— Lucy Avery, in conversation with the editor, March 2026
v.Chapter five
Now in print.
Two years in the writing, eight months in the editing, three weeks at the printer in Vicenza. Foil-stamped cloth, rough-cut signatures, end-papers drawn by her own hand. A first edition limited to four thousand.
vi.Chapter six
To be in touch.
For press, for speaking engagements, for masterclass enquiries, and for the press copies of A Lucid Mind, write to her literary office at the address below.