The Art of Making Memories by Meik Wiking is a popular psychology and personal development book about why certain experiences stay with us while others disappear almost immediately. Wiking draws on research into memory, nostalgia and happiness, alongside interviews and personal stories, to make a simple argument: we cannot control everything we remember, but we can become more intentional about creating experiences that are meaningful enough to last.

The book is at its best when it treats memory as something deeply connected to identity. Wiking explores novelty, emotion, sensory experience, attention, storytelling and the importance of both peaks and struggles. His point that we remember an experience differently when we are genuinely present for it is hardly revolutionary, but it is psychologically useful. A meal eaten without looking at a screen really can become more vivid than a dozen evenings spent half watching something while scrolling.

Readers have responded warmly to this practical quality. Some have described the book as encouraging and found themselves unexpectedly recovering forgotten childhood memories while reading it. Others have appreciated the suggestions for creating memorable experiences without requiring grand adventures or expensive travel. That accessibility is one of Wiking's strengths. He does not make happiness sound like a luxury product reserved for people with unusually exciting lives.

There is, however, a psychological limitation in the book's emphasis on happy memories. People do not remember selectively simply because they have failed to pay enough attention to the good things. Memory is reconstructive, emotional and sometimes profoundly affected by depression, grief and trauma. One reader living with depression described the painful experience of remembering negative events vividly while positive memories feel strangely inaccessible. The book's optimistic framework can sit uneasily beside that reality.

That feels like the clearest missed opportunity. Wiking is interested in how memory shapes identity and wellbeing, so a deeper discussion of people whose memories are disrupted by mental illness or trauma could have made the book considerably more humane. The advice is not wrong, but it sometimes assumes that everyone has roughly the same ability to turn experience into a comforting personal archive.

The writing is warm and visually engaging, though the book occasionally becomes more anecdotal than analytical. Readers familiar with psychology may find some of its ideas familiar, and the repetition can make a relatively modest argument feel larger than it is.

Content warnings are minimal, with discussion of grief, loneliness, ageing, death, difficult memories and mental health.

The Art of Making Memories is ultimately a gentle book about paying attention. It does not offer a secret mechanism for controlling memory, and its optimism occasionally needs more psychological qualification. But its central invitation is worthwhile. A meaningful life is partly made from what happens to us, and partly from whether we were present enough to notice it.