Pocket Puzzlers: Lateral Thinking Puzzles [Paperback]

Paul Sloane (Author), Des MacHale (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Series: Pocket Puzzlers

Stretch your mind with these ingenious and perplexing puzzles! It will take all your cleverness to overlook the obvious and train your brain to think in a new and flexible way. But, in addition to building smarts, these mystifying problems are fun to figure out. Try this: An art expert went to a sale and bought a picture he knew to be worthless. Why? Check the clues if you're lost! Answer: Though the picture was worthless, he intended to reuse the fine frame it was in. 96 pages, 18 b/w illus., 4 x 5.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Sterling (June 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806936738
• ISBN-13: 978-0806975559
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 3.9 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,048,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of oldies, but still a good collection, December 22, 2003

By 

Charles Ashbacher - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sit & Solve - Lateral Thinking Puzzles (Paperback)

This is a collection of puzzles designed to be solved quickly using only thought. While it is true that for some it may help to construct a diagram or write options down, for most the answer is just a matter of using the right approach. Most of the puzzles are not new, I recognized over fifty percent as having appeared elsewhere. Examples of such puzzles are:

1) If you are in a boat and throw something overboard which immediately sinks, does the boat rise or fall?
2) When in the last 200 years has there been a year that reads the same upside down?
3) A woman has five children and half of them are boys. How is this possible?
4) There are several problems where matches are to be moved.
5) The problem of a three-cornered duel where the odds of each hitting their target are different and the poorest shot shoots first.
6) How to arrange five circular coins so that they all touch each other.
7) If everybody in a family always votes Republican, then how come one person did not last election?

Nevertheless, I read through it with interest, even when I was only checking my memory rather than my wits. Solutions to all puzzles are in the back and there are some real sneaky ones. It is a good book for the beginning puzzle solver, although veterans may not be impressed.

Published in the recreational mathematics e-mail newsletter, reprinted with permission.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There's always an answer, January 30, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Sit & Solve - Lateral Thinking Puzzles (Paperback)

This is a brilliant little book that can be used for party games or just to while away the time if you enjoy puzzles. It has something for everyone and apart from the entertainment value I have also found some of the puzzles to be quite educational. What is most fascinating is that although many of the puzzles seem to be impossible to solve there is always an answer. A little gem and an ideal fun gift.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I just love lateral thinking, June 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Pocket Puzzlers: Lateral Thinking Puzzles (Paperback)

One day my Language Arts teacher said that we would try something fun today. Yeah right I thought, but he read us some lateral thinking puzzles, and I just loved trying to figure them out. I bought this book and read every one, some were hard, and some I could figure out after thinking for about 5 minutes. It is a perfect thing for boredom, and is just fun and interesting. A man was born before his father, killed his mother, and married his sister, and was perfectly normal. What was going on?