Sudoku Easy Presented by Will Shortz Volume 1: 100 Wordless Crossword Puzzles [Paperback]

Will Shortz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 28, 2005

The hottest craze in puzzles!

“On no account should any reader not already hooked so much as a glance at a sudoku. That way lies addiction and madness. Sudoku are to the first decade of the twenty-first century what Rubik’s Cube was to the 1970s.”
--Tom Utley, The Daily Telegraph

From puzzlemaster and New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz comes sudoku, the new “wordless crossword” puzzle that’s taking the world by storm! Once you start, you won’t want to stop. These addictive puzzles are easy to explain--just fill the grid with numbers according to the few simple rules--but incredibly fun and engaging to complete. You don’t need any mathematics knowledge: Just supply a pencil and an inquisitive mind.
This brand-new collection features original, easy-to-solve sudoku from Will Shortz, along with an introduction that explains these fascinating puzzles and how to solve them. Once you’ve mastered the easier sudoku, try the last ten puzzles designed to challenge those who want to give their brains more of a workout. If you’re a crossword fan, a fan of logic puzzles, or just a puzzle lover in general, you will be engrossed and delighted with sudoku!

“A puzzling global phenomenon.”
--The Economist

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A puzzling global phenomenon”
--The Economist

“The biggest craze to hit The Times since the first crossword puzzle was published in 1935.”
--The Times of London

“England’s most addictive newspaper puzzle.”
--New York magazine

“The latest craze in games”
– BBC News

“Sudoku is dangerous stuff. Forget work and family—think papers hurled across the room and industrial-sized blobs of correction fluid. I love it!”
--The Times of London

“Sudokus are to the first decade of the 21st century what Rubik’s Cube was to the 1970s.”
– The Daily Telegraph

“Britain has a new addiction. Hunched over newspapers on crowded subway trains, sneaking secret peeks in the office, a puzzle-crazy nation is trying to slot numbers into small checkerboard grids.”
--Associated Press

“Forget crosswords.”
--The Christian Science Monitor

From the Back Cover

The hottest craze in puzzles!

From puzzlemaster and New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz comes sudoku, the new "wordless crossword" puzzle that's taking the world by storm! Once you start, you won't want to stop. These addictive puzzles are easy to explain---just fill the grid with numbers according to the few simple rules---but incredibly fun and engaging to complete. You don't need any mathematics knowledge: Just supply a pencil and an inquisitive mind.
This brand-new collection features original, easy-to-solve sudoku from Will Shortz, along with an introduction that explains these fascinating puzzles and how to solve them. Once you've mastered the easier sudoku, try the last ten puzzles designed to challenge those who want to give their brains more of a workout. If you're a crossword fan, a fan of logic puzzles, or just a puzzle lover in general, you will be engrossed and delighted with sudoku!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 1st edition (July 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312355025
• ISBN-13: 978-0312355029
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #252,418 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #99 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Sudoku

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

89 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Starting Point for Sudoku Novices, November 16, 2005

By 

Colleen McMahon ""Omnivorous Reader"" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sudoku Easy Presented by Will Shortz Volume 1: 100 Wordless Crossword Puzzles (Paperback)

Do You Sudoku? This is becoming a true fad in the US as it already has in the UK and Japan and elsewhere. If you are wondering what all the fuss is about, like puzzles and logic and want to give it a try, this is a great place to start! Or, if you are looking for an inexpensive gift or stocking stuffer for a puzzle fan on your Christmas list, pick this up for him or her.

Will Shortz is a big name in crossword puzzles and has been for years. His name on a book on a book of crossword puzzles denotes high quality in both editing and production for the most part. It's the same with his new line of sudoku books.

Volume 1 is all easy puzzles. An experienced sudoku-er may find the consistent easy level boring, so for them I recommend #2 or #3 in the series, which have a variety of difficulty levels. But for someone just starting out, or a youngster/teenager, this is an excellent book. There's a decent explanation of sudoku's history and basic solving strategies in the beginning, and then 100 puzzles. The book is thin enough to be portable and unlike many newspaper puzzles, the big grids make it easy on the eyes, especially if you have to write the "possibles" in a box. The higher-quality paper stands up well to erasing (and there's almost always some erasing involved in sudoku).

Gift suggestion: include a packet of mechanical pencils with a sudoku book or books--your recipient will definitely appreciate it!

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From the Board Games Editor at BellaOnline.com, December 5, 2005

By 

Megan Romer (Lafayette, LA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sudoku Easy Presented by Will Shortz Volume 1: 100 Wordless Crossword Puzzles (Paperback)

This book is yet another wonderful collection of the highly addictive sudoku puzzles. This one is all easy puzzles, which makes it nice for both beginners and masters. Beginners will enjoy the well-written instructions and the sudoku history, and they'll find themselves breezing through the book in no time. Masters will enjoy the easy-level puzzles for situations when they don't have enough time to puzzle through a difficult sudoku (coffee breaks, subway rides, etc.) A great holiday gift idea!

89 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two more SUDOKU books from one of the best!, August 5, 2005

By 

J. Guild (Toronto,Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sudoku Easy Presented by Will Shortz Volume 1: 100 Wordless Crossword Puzzles (Paperback)

Two more SUDOKU books No.1 & 2 just appeared.They carry the name of the master puzzlemaker,Will Shortz who is very well known to all puzzle enthusiasts (metagrobologists);especially crosswords.Will gives a short introduction to this "new" puzzle,which he shows us is not really that new.He's been in the game a long time and I think when he tells us something;you can take it to the bank.He thinks it is going to be as popular as were Crosswords in the 20's,Jigsaws in the 30's,and Rubik's Cube in the 80's.Rubik's cube came out 25 years ago;Believe It or Not!While it was a real craze,it was beyond the ability of most people.It has still got a following, and I attended a World Championship last year here in Toronto.The winner was a teenager from California who solved it in 16 seconds.One of the contestants he defeated was a college professor who competed in the First World Championship in 1981 and had been working on it all those years.Crosswords and Jigsaws can be done by just about anyone depending on the difficulty and patience and time.SUDOKU is also a puzzle that can be done by the masses but it also lends itself to speed competitions.If my memory serves me well;in competitions,the Sunday New York Times Crossword gets solved in 3 minutes. I think we are going to see SUDOKU competitions on TV very soon.

Shortz tells us the name SUDOKU comes from the Japanese phrase "suji wadokushin ni kagiru" meaning "only single numbers allowed".He also tells us these puzzles first appeared in Dell Pencil Puzzles and Games Magazine; in May 1979, and that the inventor credited for them was Howard Garns an Architect from Indianapolis, who retired in the 1970's and died in 1981.He was 74 when he sold his first puzzle.These puzzles were called"NUMBER PLACE"The editor of a Japanese Puzzle magazine took them back to Japan and published these puzzles under the name of SUDOKU and in the last year have caught fire and have spread all around the world and finally coming back to where they started.

The puzzles in these books were created by Peter Ritmeester.He is the General Secretary of The World Puzzle Federation which organizes World Puzzle Championships in which SUDOKU puzzles and variations on them have been popular for years.

Each book contains simple solution methods and 100 puzzles to solve .

These would be great books to get started or as gifts to someone who is already doing these puzzles in their local newspapers or anyone who likes "to do puzzles".

If interested,I have written Reviews on other SUDOKU puzzle books; see Aug 3 (2 books), Aug 10 and Sept 30.

It,s now Nov 23,2005,and here,s a bit of an update.Several other Sudoku books and sets for Dummies by Will Shortz have appeared They are much like the first one.If looking for Sudoko books in bookstores check out the Games section.You should find over 20 different ones;great Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers.