Customer Reviews

Mathematical Puzzles of Sam Loyd

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If you really like tough puzzles, that is the book and the writer that you were looking for. In one book there is enough puzzles for a human being life.

The puzzle categories are also quite wide from tangram to chess problems.

A good puzzle is much like a classic novel. You read it and then after a certain period of time, you can read it again and enjoy it just as much as the first time. These puzzles of Sam Loyd, which were published over a century ago, stretch the brain cells as much now as they did when they dazzled the people of a younger country.
The problems follow very standard themes. Having read many puzzle books, I recognized the form of all of the puzzles in this one. However, they are so well stated that reading them is a significant part of the fun. It is also an interesting piece of historical perspective that puzzles were also a very popular staple in newspapers over a century ago. Reading the puzzles and looking at the diagrams also takes you back to a different age. Some of the caricatures of the figures could not be used in the politically correct atmosphere of today. It also seems most unlikely that a problem involving nuns being abducted by soldiers would be published in a modern newspaper. Therefore, it is necessary to cut a little historical slack when you read the book.
Sam Loyd was the best puzzlist that America has ever had. The only possible challenger is the editor of this collection, which is most fitting. I enjoyed the book immensely, even though I was in most cases rereading rather than solving for the first time.