4 out of 5 stars

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.

I like puzzles of all sorts and Bellos seems to have these sorts of books off to a T. This is the third of his that is have read, though that probably is the wrong word for this type of book. The puzzles in here are pitched about right too, not too easy, but you don’t need a handful of PhD’s to be able to even understand the questions. It has a good selection of classic conundrums, infuriating brainteasers and baffling geometry puzzles that you can dip into as often or as little as you want. They often involve a linguistic or logical sleight of hand that makes you think of something entirely different before you realise that you have been sent down the wrong path to the solution.

I was quite pleased that I could get some (not many, mind you) of them straight away, and some took a little time to mull over. There were other puzzles that eluded me until I looked at the answers that are thankfully provided at the end of the book. Mathematically they are not hard, rather they are fiendishly difficult logical and sometimes illogical puzzles designed to stretch and exercise your brains. Good companion volumes to The Puzzle Ninja and Can You Solve my Problems?

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