An elaborate joke on memory?
The science of solving a book mystery
Updated: 16th September 2022 - see end
A post appeared on Hacker News recently for this Guardian article in which Richard Restak, MD talks to Gaby Hinsliffe about how one can combat memory loss and stave off Alzheimer’s. The article features his latest book: The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening Your Mind.
It looks like this:
Interesting and useful, thank you Richard. But not the most interesting thing about this book.
I then forgot about it for the rest of the day. It was only when I attempted to find it again later that I stumbled on something interesting via Google Image Search…
Hang on, what?
In the first result, was the book I was looking for. In the fourth, was a listing for a book at Waterstones, which had the same book title, but with a different cover and a different author.
The second imposter book is called The Memory of Being Human: A Complete Guide by Ilchi Lee.
Ok, so there’s surely a reasonable explanation that I’m just not privy to, given my lack of knowledge of the publishing industry. Maybe it’s the same book but one is published under a pen name, or it’s a translated version? Maybe it’s normal for publishers to reuse cover imagery?
Here’s Ilchi Lee’s book cover:
I have a lot of questions.
Could it be that only one of these people is real, and the other is just a pen name used for another demographic or continent?
Let’s exercise our detective skills shall we?
First up: do these two people both exist?
Ilchi Lee
Born in South Korea in 1950, Ilchi Lee is “an innovative leader in brain potential development”. His Wikipedia page has a red flag because its factual accuracy is disputed, but let’s leave that for now.
Note also that at the time of writing, the bibliography section doesn’t mention the book in question, but neither does his website, so perhaps it’s just not been updated in a while.
He’s had a number of public appearances and certainly seems to exist though.
Richard Restak, MD
Born in America in 1942, Restak is a postgraduate doctor, and Clinical Professor of Neurology and therefore has more scientific credentials than Lee, and given a host of TV appearances and public speaking, also seems to exist.
Interestingly, neither his Wikipedia page nor his personal website reference his book above either. But again, not beyond the realms of possibility that they just haven’t been updated yet.
Ok, so they are two different and real people. Tick.
Now let’s compare the metadata…
Analysis
According to Goodreads, Restak’s book has 216 pages, published July 5, 2022 by Skyhorse (an Imprint of Simon & Schuster). It’s ISBN is 9781510770270 (ISBN10: 1510770275.
Also according to Goodreads, Lee’s book has 192 pages, published November 3, 2020 also by Skyhorse. It’s ISBN is 9781510757790 (ISBN10: 1510757791).
Lee got there first? Interesting.
Publication date
As an aside, I’d gone around the houses thanks to reporting of a varying publication dates (confounded further by format). For example, the Guardian bookshop I’d originally come from had the date for Restak’s book as September 15, 2022 (that’s in the future as I type, and seemed to be the date they were going to sell it from, so I didn’t trust this one from the off), but Goodreads gave a date of July 5, 2022.
And for Lee’s book, a Tweet (February 15, 2020) predated the publication date given by Goodreads (November 3, 2020) and Amazon.com (February 2, 2021) and I’d decided that the dates were irrelevant here anyway, as it seemed undeniable that Lee’s book was published first in 2020, and Restak’s in 2022.
Synopses
I compared the book descriptions by whacking them into diffchecker.com. That’s Restak’s on the left, Lee’s on the right.
Hmm. At this point, it just looks like someone over at Skyhorse has simply reused Mr Lee’s synopsis for Mr Restak’s and made some minor amendments.
There’s an interesting reference to Brain World magazine in Lee’s book synopsis. But a search of said publication gives no further insight except his author page.
ISBNs
A Google for Restak’s ISBN gives expected results, BUT for Lee’s ISBN, everywhere except Goodreads (and one Italian University Bookshop) gives Lee’s name but with Restak’s book title…
Oh great, so now we seem to have the same book listing title with two different authors, and a different cover title.
Now, I’m aware that it only takes one mistake somewhere for it to filter down to everywhere else. These bookstores are probably just querying a database of ISBNs after all.
But what was the mistake exactly?
“Yes sorry, we accidentally over-typed the original book title and author with this new one and reused the same layout and graphic.”
(Publishers, please get in touch, because I don’t know how this all works, and I’m honestly all ears).
It was at this point that I knew I needed to acquire the physical books.
The quest to purchase
Buying Lee’s book proved challenging. Even using Restak’s book title.
If we refer back to the Goodreads page a second, Lee’s book doesn’t have any ratings or reviews. Fair enough, perhaps no-one has submitted one yet.
Clicking through to every one of the 14 listed vendors was fruitless and all marked it “not available” or “out of stock”. There were a couple of listings for book rentals in the US but since I’m in the UK, I kept looking for something close to home.
I could understand why no-one had reviewed it yet.
Finally, ditching the US-centric links of Goodreads, I found a copy online at UK-based Foyles. Here’s my invoice:
Note that the cover art is for Lee’s book, as is the ISBN, but as per the Google search results above, the title is not.
At the time of writing, my book order is being processed. I have two theories:
A book will arrive entitled The Complete Guide… but it will be Restak’s,
They will cancel the order realising they don’t actually have it in stock.
Restak’s book was a lot easier to acquire - given it seems to have been given recently popularity from Hacker News, The Guardian and New York Times and has a relatively recent publication date.
Restak’s book also has a “Look Inside” from Amazon available.
Summary
Of course, with only one book at hand, I can’t draw a conclusion yet. I’m going to assume that the books are completely different and the contents are legit.
So what am I thinking now?
There’s almost certainly no conspiracy here, but I find it fascinating that two different books (or indeed two people) would share a cover, and possibly a title, and how that would happen.
Maybe a Skyhorse intern redesigned Lee’s cover from an “old template”, believing it to be out of print, or similar.
If you’re still reading, here’s a rundown:
So it’s not plagiarism? Of the cover or the book contents?
Well, both books have the same publisher; Skyhorse, so this seems unlikely. Unlikelier still, for a well-renowned neuropsychologist to be borrowing from works (of a somewhat less qualified Taoist) written two years prior, surely? And for Skyhorse to have reused the cover for the plagiarised book in an overwhelming display of incompetence. No, not this.
Did the cover accidentally get reused?
Maybe but then both books would exist, so why is Lee’s book unavailable everywhere? Why has no-one seemingly ever sold it or read it? Why isn’t it on his website?
The cover was reused on-purpose then?
What if Lee’s book got as far as a cover design, title and ISBN, but was never written or published, and was then relinquished for another author with the same publisher…? This might be the most feasible explanation. But as far as I know, books don’t get this kind of treatment until there’s at least a working draft in the hands of the publishers. (Again, publishers, please correct me if I’m wrong).
If say, there was a draft, but it was canned for some reason and it was too late to stop the ISBN “seeding” everywhere, then why is it still available on Goodreads with Ilchi Lee himself a “Goodreads Author”, seemingly the equivalent of Twitter’s Blue Tick, why not notify the resellers, Amazon etc. and let them know it’s not going to be available?
That would be effort I suppose.
Is the whole thing an elaborate joke about memory?
Possibly. What were we talking about again?
Skyhorse and Ilchi Lee have been approached for comment.
Update: 16th September 2022
Sorry readers. Three weeks have passed since the Lee vs Restak mystery and I’m no closer to answers.
As predicted, my order with Foyles was cancelled, (if you placed a bet, it was option number 2, “we don’t actually have a copy of the book”), and still no word from Mr Lee’s mysterious website wizard who states “you will always receive a concerned and sincere response from me”.
Nor did I get anywhere with Skyhorse but I’m not one for giving up…
Great article! Really weird stuff, it's nice to see someone covering more mundane oddities like this :)