Puzzles Books

IT SEEMS LIKE MOST AUTHORS ONLY HAVE ONE OR TWO REALLY GREAT BOOKS, BUT NOT WITH JULIA DONALDSON. WE FIRST READ THE GRUFFALO (AN ABSOLUTE MUST HAVE FOR ANY CHILD) & I REALLY DIDN'T EXPECT ANYTHING GREAT FROM HER OTHER BOOKS, BUT THOUGHT WE'D TRY THEM ANYWAY & AM SO GLAD WE DID. THIS IS ANOTHER GREAT BOOK! I CAN'T BELIEVE THERE'S ONLY ONE REVIEW ON THIS.

A BABY MONKEY LOST HIS MOM & A BUTTERFLY IS TRYING TO HELP. THE BUTTERFLY KEEPS LEADING MONKEY TO THE WRONG CREATURE. IT SEEMS PRETTY OBVIOUS THE BUTTERFLY SHOULD HAVE A CLUE AS TO WHAT THE MONKEY'S MOM LOOKS LIKE, BUT THEN THE BUTTERFLY IS SHOWN WITH CATERPILLARS & SAYS HER BABIES DON'T LOOK LIKE HER. THIS IS ANOTHER CLEAVER & WONDERFLY ILLUSTRATED BOOK BY DONALDSON & AXEL. WE LOVE IT!

This is a great book for children and their parents! Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler have created another wonderful children's book. Like their well-known favorite The Gruffalo, this book has colorful, detailed pictures and a catchy rhythm. It's a real pleasure to read, and it will help little ones learn their animals!

I had to read this book over and over again to my little son. It's such a cute story with great pictures and excellent rhymes. If you like it I think you have to read "Room on the broom".

This is the third Original Sudoku book that I have purchased and enjoyed.
These puzzles are far superior to many found in magazines and newspapers. Unlike the computer generated puzzles which can be frustrating to solve at times, these puzzles are hand generated and no matter the degree of difficulty can be solved through rules and logic. Each Original Sudoku has excellent rules and instructions in front of the book. Beginners will enjoy starting off easy and working their way through medium hard and very hard puzzles. Expert Sudoku fans will enjoy all of the levels of difficulty. A great first time book for new puzzle fans!

Love these books!! This is my third in the series. Nice size to take with you and graduates from simple to hard puzzles. Thick pages and dark print pages make it easy to see and complete.

This IS the perfect sized Sudoku book to have with you on the airplane or in the doctor's waiting room to help pass the time.

Very good supplement for M&M. Complete city, with tons of locations, plots hooks and plenty of superheroes and bad guys to put in your campaign.

This books is a good complement for the game, with a city completely designed and ready for play.

To say that this book goes into detail on the inner workings of the largest setting in the game is an understatement of mammoth proportions. The book opens up with the history of Freedom City, with a detailed history of the city covering nearly 300 years, with information about the site going all the way back to prehistoric times.

In modern times, it details 19 seperate areas/neighborhoods of Freedom City, including the entire transit system break down for the city, from taxi cabs to airports to the ships at the piers. Day to day living within the city is complete with lists and descriptions of major retail chains, banks, schools, entertainment centers, hospitals, religious centers, right down to nightclubs and local sports teams. The level of detail here is breathtaking, and even a little overwhelming at times.

For those that are more intrested in mechanical aspects, there are full writeups and statblocks for each member of the Freedom League, along with other hero groups such as the Atom Family, Next-Gen, as well as a number of solo heroes. And of course, there are numerous villians and evil groups to oppose the heroes. There are a total of 10 seperate supervillian organizations presented, each with a number of individual villians making them up, all with complete stat blocks. Not to mention a list of free-lance villians for those one shot game needs.

And don't think that this book is limited to just this one city. There is an entire chapter devoted to nothing but world-wide groups and organizations, including a breakdown of each major continent and the prevalance of super powered individuals they host. It also includes all of the major "secret" locations of the Mutants & Masterminds universe, from Atlantis to Kaiju Island, to galactic locations such as Far City, and groups like the Star Knights and the Grue Unity. And beyond even that are locations such as Terminus, the Zero Zone, and multiple alternate-Earths detailing everything from Ani-Earth and the Furry League to Earths that never saw the fall of the Roman Empire, or where Germany won the second world war.

Not only is it the definative guidebook for anything and everything having to do with Freedom City, it is indespensible as a resource for the entire Mutants and Masterminds 2e universe.

My six year old received this for xmas and loves it!! It is challenging and FUN for him. He definitely needs help with some of the spelling, but thoroughly enjoys it! And how can you complain about something that helps with penmanship and spelling skills!!

Our daughter is at a 1st grade reading and writing level and she loves this book. She definitely needs help with spelling some of the words but loves that she can do many of the lines herself. The pictures are clear, the boxes are large. Overall a well done book!

I work with kids with autism who are very bright, but need to practice writing and communication skills. The picture crosswords give them a fun alternative to writing paragraphs and a little more workout than a regular crossword, since they need to translate the picture into words and then figure out where to put the word in the grid. It is a big hit with them and a great exercise for them.

This is a how-to book about running a d20 campaign in the `Biblical Era'

It includes alternative base classes, prestige classes, spells, monsters and a wealth of information about culture, history and religion of the major powers in the region. Does give a bit more space to the Israelites, but Egyptian, Babylonian and Cannite societies are all discussed in detail. A new tactical battle system is also introduced to run Biblical style wars. (aka. where the actions of a single hero or miracle will determine the course of the battle.)

Players need to be a little more mature than most d20 games to enjoy TESTAMENT. Not because the content is questionable. (although the discussion of Temple Prostitutes may cause snickering in some groups) There is a heavy emphasis on role playing in TESTAMENT. Protecting your tribe, surviving history and maintaining piety are very important concerns in the setting. If your players are looking for a `kill monsters and take their stuff' kind of game, than a lot of info in this book is going to go to waste.

Looking for an alternative to the LOTR/Conan/Magic Medieval setting? Try TESTAMENT. It's Better than you think.

This is an example for any 'historical' or 'literary' RPG supplement. It gives a good overview of the historical and literary inspirations, makes complete and coherent rules for role playing in that setting, addresses fairly the limits and opportunities in taking a setting familiar through history or fiction and making the shift to a role playing setting. Not only did they think up cool and useful feats, spells, etc. they are integrated deeply into the setting & vice versa. There are good gaming products out there, but few that can serve as an example of how to make a good gaming product as well. Some may say it isn't perfect, but until we find something that is, this will serve as something to measure other products against.

Excellent roleplaying guide for any Old Testament story. Covers play as any of the ancient peoples of the Bible and during any period, although there is an emphasis on Israelites and King David. Detailed events system makes village and farming life interesting. Bronze age army combat resolution captures the feel of the ancient ballads. Heroes dominate the ancient battlefield like champions from the Trojan War. Very, very well done and worthwhile for anyone interested in roleplaying the Ancient World.

The best puzzles satisfy the following criteria:

(a) Easy to understand and look easy to solve.
(b) Difficult to solve.
(c) In reality, easy to solve and the solutions are easy to understand.

All of the puzzles contained in this book, many of which have been in existence in some form for many years, fit the mold defined above. Detailed instructions on how to construct them as well as solutions are included. While most require only standard materials, such skills as wood and metal working are sometimes necessary.
It is easy to feel like an imbecile when you are unsuccessful in solving some of these items and then in desperation go to the solutions and see how simple it is. In many cases, the secret is to abandon the "obvious" approach and look at the problem sideways. The path that first appears least likely to lead to a solution is often the proper one. If you enjoy puzzles, this book is a necessary purchase.

Published in Journal Of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

Excellent book covering a wide variety of puzzles, old and new, simple and complex. Full of color photos and diagrams that illustrate the puzzle and its workings, but with a light touch so the reader is not bored with details.

Boy!! what a book for a puzzle lover and/or collector.You just wont find a better book on the subject than this;for the simple reason that the two authors are the top puzzle guys.Well,maybe their other books are just as good.Can you imagine someone with a collection of 20,000 mechanical puzzles and 2,000 puzzle books. Some of these puzzles date back to the 17th.century.This book is so well put together I would suspect that even someone who doesn't particularly like to solve ,or for that matter don't even think they could solve puzzles ;would find this book a joy to thumb through.
The book includes 101 puzzles ,directions on making and solutions.Going through this book is almost as interesting as would be a visit with the authors and looking at this fantastic world class collection.Without question,a book no puzzle lover should be without .I own about 500 puzzle books and this is one of the best and one of my favorites.

I'm really happy that all over the world anybody can find something so fresh and great for himself brain growth. It's realy magic how one book can show you so much brandnew ideas...And it's only beginning.

Great puzzle book! - full of reworked classics, but with plenty of new twists and ideas - though you'll need to get plenty of paper and a pair of scissors to work many of the puzzles.

Let's hope for more puzzles from Serhiy!

If you're an afficianado of visual/logicial puzzles, you've probably shared my experience when browsing through so-called new puzzle books at your local bookstore-they all recycle the same old familiar chestnuts! There are a few places to find original puzzles-Games Magazine, the World Puzzle Championships, Scott Kim, Cliff Johnson, Think Fun-but not many. Happily, Grabarchuk's new book is a welcome departure from the norm. His puzzles are original and first rate, in a league far above your typical Mensa puzzle book. Highly recommended.

Aside from a monoply variation I didn't get much out of this. Most of the games I had never even heard of and I play a lot of games.

This book is excellent. This book will open a gamer up to new possibilities and ideas. Lots of variants on common games like chess.

In this book we see games we have played many times, and have (maybe) become bored with, revitalized with clever ideas, enhancements and suggestions from the author. As an example, consider the section on balancing non-symmetric games (such as Chess and Go which have an inbuilt first person advantage). Bidding, simultaneous playing of two games and the ingeneous "I'll make a move and then you decide whether to play black or white" idea where one player makes a move that the other player has to decide is bad or good are suggestions that are useful not just in the context given, but in the design and evaluation of all games. Recommended for anyone who enjoys, studies, reviews or designs games -- especially strategy games.

Wayne Schmittberger is a longtime associate of Games Magazine. It's a lot of fun to tinker with games to see how they change. The growth in Chess Variants is just one aspect of this. He explains those well, along with variants on Go, Risk, Monopoly, and many other games. He introduces many games you probably haven't seen before. All of them are great games, too! If you are considering designing a game of your own, or if you just have a collection of games, you need this book.

Whether you're flying, lounging by the pool, stretched out on the couch or riding a bus, this little entertainer is right there for you.
Each puzzle is contained on a single page and the spiral binding folds back on itself to provide a firm, page-size writing surface, so you don't need a lap-table or tray. Puzzles are challenging (after all, it IS the NY Times we're talking about) but a good search engine will prove invaluable.

These puzzles are extremely hard but they are clever and fun to do. I've only been able to do two so far without cheating ie: looking up the answers. They are tricky but I'm getting used to some of the tricks such as realizing that a single letter need not be an "a" or an "i" . And clues can have several different meanings and word forms -what looks like a noun can be a verb etc.For example a recent clue was "single" and I was trying to think of a word for unmarried or a one dollar bill. The answer was "one base hit."

As a long-time solver and former constructor of acrostic puzzles, I find it difficult to find acrostics that can challenge me, but these do! They are considerably more challenging than the ones Middleton does for the Simon and Schuster series. I highly recommend them to experienced solvers.

I love this product and buy it every year and get some for xmas presents for friends. It is daily fun that I look forward to and challenges you more and more as the days move to Sat/Sun. Highly recommended!

These are excellent puzzles ready to be worked on a daily basis. I've given this calendar to my father in law for many years, and he loves having it around. He likes to work them while he has his morning coffee.

This page-a-day desk calendar features 313 consecutive New York Times daily crossword puzzles originally printed between May 11, 2004 and June 1, 2005. This series aligns with the normal Monday to Saturday progression of difficulty. Saturdays and Sundays share a calendar page and feature a Saturday puzzle.
The puzzle grids measure about 3" x 3" on the page, while each full page measures about 6" x 5". The lower right corner even features a few square inches of blank space for use as an actual desk calendar. The tear-off pages offer portability - I often keep a few pages in my planner for use in waiting rooms, train rides, etc.
The 2007 calendar merited criticism for reusing the same puzzles as the 2006 one, but this 2008 edition clearly states on the box that these are not those same puzzles.