Despite the title more of an attempt to give a systematic overview of puzzles with some history thrown in. The puzzles and their presentation are rarely original or insightful, worse, there are many serious mistakes and misleading statements in this book (e.g. "G a" reply by Voltaire to Frederick the Great is given as "G rand a petit" missing the point). Often feels like the author is out of his depth, in particular in the more technical/mathematical sections. He also does not get any closer to explaining the "puzzle instinct", the last chapter remains mostly superficial (and unconnected to the previous chapters). Any book by Gardner, Smullyan, etc. would be better. ( )