Sitting down to do the crossword or Sudoku in a paper gives most people a lot of pleasure, it stretches your brain and enables you to while away a few moments away from a screen of some sort. For those that want to stretch themselves some more, then Alex Bellos has been over to Japan and has come home bearing puzzle shaped gifts.

These have been sought from the enigmatologists of Japan and are very different to the puzzles that you may have come across so far. There are graphical ones, ones that create mazes, a puzzle where you need to separate the wolves from the sheep and even a golf one. For most of them, there are two or three simple rules, however, from simplicity comes complexity and these may start easy, but he collected puzzles that he describes as excruciatingly difficult.

Dare to ask questions and seek answers to the puzzles of life. ― Lailah Gifty Akita

So if you fancy having your brain fried in new and fiendishly complicated ways, this could be the books for you. There are twenty of these new puzzles and over 200 examples in total collected from the wonderfully named Puzzle Poet and The Super Sensi to name but two. Was pleased to see one of my favourites in here, O'Elaki too. If you love puzzles then this is one for your bookshelf; though I cannot be held responsible for any stress caused… ( )

I took my time working my way through this book. I didn't do ALL the puzzles. Mostly I would just read the intros and do one or two. Some of them I spent hours on. I returned to my favorites and did work my way through all of those. I was blown away that this existed. I loved the idea. A nice introduction to dozens of different types of small grid pencil and paper puzzles, and interviews with their inventors!

...but sadly the interviews were barely interviews. At most they were anecdotes about meeting them, and maybe one or two quotes. At worst, just a paragraph about why the author liked the puzzle. No mention of the puzzle inventor at all. (Boo!)

So the book gets 5 stars from me because it's an amazing idea, and as an introduction to a bunch of different types of puzzles, it does that very well. But I wish the idea had been taken farther. I'd have loved more of the interviews especially. More from them about process. More from them about everything really.

But overall, really good stuff. Highly recommended if you are any kind of fan of puzzles. ( )