Mental Gymnastics: For Trivia Freaks and Puzzle Nuts

William Andrews was a librarian at Runnymede Public Library, Toronto.

Ken Weber has produced a book designed to make life interesting for the lover of puzzles. He is eminently suited to write this book, since puzzles and special thinking skills are both his vocation and his avocation. He is Professor in the Department of Special Education, University of Toronto, and has written several books and created kits on thinking games and skills that have helped make him known internationally as an education consultant.

The book is a congeries of every type of puzzle and trick question imaginable: trivia questions, intelligence tests, mathematical and whodunit puzzles — all guaranteed to please a wide variety of puzzle lovers. There are also pages of “Icebreakers” (tidbits of arcane information for the party-goer) and “Graffiti Pages” complete with witty putdowns. The puzzles range in difficulty from the merely hard to the impossible-to-solve; they give enjoyment and amusement on nearly every page. The price is not steep, especially since the author asks the user to answer the questions without using a pencil, thus making it possible to reuse the book. There is an answer section at the end to relieve your furrowed brow.