The Marathon Game Books

I have known David and Roger since the 70's and have other books by them. They love running foot races and it shows. You can count that this will be the best researched and well written book. I was not disappointed. I dug in and read the book over a couple of weeks. If it is not in this book then it is an unproved rumor.

If you are a runner (especially a marathoner) you have to get this book. It goes through every marathon in Olympic history, giving each race history, events, course, statistics, etc. It is very thorough, while pacing itself to get in all the Olympic marathons into a single volume. And, it was written in an interesting and readable manner.

The competition and sport of the races themselves give a great basis for an exciting read.

If you are doing a research project (like I was) this was the only book I would recommend - or, at least the first book. I could not find a book anywhere that showed the 1960 Rome Olympic course. Martin and Gynn had it. In fact, their race course map was better than the map a friend obtained for me from the Italian Olympic Library (Federazione Italiana Di Ateletica Leggera).

The authors, Martin and Gynn, have put together an unbelieveably detailed review of every Olympic Marathon in the modern era. The detail provided brings the excitement of each successive Marathon alive. The Olympic Marathon is, perhaps, the most grueling Olympic event, and the comprehensive coverage of each race makes the reader feel as if it's taking place before their very eyes. Read this book and you'll get a sense of the drama of the event, the personal history of the runners, and the historical setting of each race. The authors have even reconstructed old Olympic documents to trace the paths each Olympic Marathon took. The information in this book is truly encyclopedic, and the authors have given us with a wonderful sense of what this race is about. This book is a gem.

This book is made up of 29 chapters, one for each Olympic Marathon race (through 1996). The chapters average 6 pages each, which makes this book very easy to read. Each chapter/race is a fascinating story. And the book is very well written. A great read.

In general, I found the word puzzles in this book to be very hard. Most of them are in the category called "Scramblegrams." The structure of these problems is that a series of words are scrambled, with the letters above a series of dashes to be filled in. Some of the letter positions are highlighted and those letters will then be used to create a final phrase. Another type of problem is the "word melt", where you start with a word and change one letter at a time to end with another word. Each intermediate step must also be a valid word. There are also a few "word search" puzzles.
In general, I am not a fan of word puzzles; I do them on occasion for a change a pace and challenge. In this case, for me, the emphasis is on challenge.

In the introduction to this puzzle book, the editors of Smart Games, Inc. say that when it comes to your mental acuity, you must use it or lose it. This collection of word puzzles is intended to help you with your mental exercises. There are four types of puzzles in the collection:

- Scramblegrams, where you unscramble words in themed sets
- Word melt, which is a word ladder where you replace one or two letters at a time to change from the starting word to the ending word
- Word blocks, where you arrange 2 letter blocks to form letters, using each block only once
- Word hunt, which is a word search grid where you locate themed words hidden in any direction in the grid, including in a snaking path

The puzzles range from easy to hard. There's not much variety here compared to other word puzzle books, though, so I give it only 3 stars. The book is spiral bound to lie flat while you solve. A CD ROM is included with bonus word puzzles to solve.

Eileen Rieback

My daughter is 9 years old, and loves this book. We actually have the whole series.