Best Crossword Puzzles
500 puzzles; the biggest collection of Sunday crosswords ( the Times' most popular) EVER. He has edited countless books of crossword puzzles, Sudoku, KenKen, and all manner of brain-busters.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This was purchased for a gift."
"As any cruciverbalist knows, you must keep lots of puzzles on hand."
"A great value."
"Some very challenging puzzles in this book."
"Very heavy and difficult to hold."
"Bought this for my mother and she loves it."
"It made a great Christmas gift for my mom."
"A majority of the book featured long puzzles with the grids so small that it was very difficult to print letters in them."
From The New York Times , the gold standard of crossword puzzles, comes this new collection containing a stunning 1,001 puzzles of all levels of difficulty, enough for even the most determined crossword fanatic. He has edited countless books of crossword puzzles, Sudoku, KenKen, and all manner of brain-busters.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Puzzles to last me a long time."
"I bought this for my sister as a gift and she was very pleased."
"Another great puzzle book, very entertaining and worth the cost."
"Feels like the weeks go by, monday easier up til friday where it gets a bit tougher then all over again!"
"And copying allowed me to enlarge them to a full letter size page if I so desired (though it was not necessary -- the puzzles are their normal dimensions and fit two-to-a-page in this collection). Also, in case you're a novice puzzler, the NY Times puzzles can get pretty hard. Instead, you'll be getting "foie gras" for p-a-t-e. (Frequent foreign language clues, people you've never heard of, obscure island names, etc.). The good news is that your vocabulary will expand and you'll learn a lot more than you would from the TV guide puzzle."
"Puzzles are not as entertaining as present-day puzzles, but still satisfying and certainly it will take a long time to run out."
Boasting an average of 60 word clues, each game is centered on themes such as Letters to Rome, Tax Credits, Opposites Attract, and more. USA TODAY® has been in circulation since September 15, 1982, and has a daily readership of nearly 6 million in print and online.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I'm a crossword addict - I was worried being that these were from USA Today that they wouldn't be challenging, but they are!"
"Purchased for my father-in-law - so far he is very happy with the puzzles in the book."
"But I saved a million dollars by buying the book."
"Bigger than expected."
"My wife loves the crossword puzzles."
"Product as expected."
"Great puzzle book, puzzles were great, not impossible to do."
"The person I gave this to for Christmas,said it is on of the better crossword puzzles."
Best Crostic Puzzles
(Traditional crostic quotes have less than 200 letters.).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I wouldn't say these are trivial, but they are certainly easier than the New York Times puzzles, and not to be compared to those of the immortal Charles A, Duerr. With a book of 50 Charles A Duerr puzzles, I feel proud of myself if I manage to do them all, even if two or three of them took me several days. One howler I remember had, for the name of the strait at the southern entrance to New York Bay, the answer "Verrazano Narrows.""
"I can't say enough good things about these crostics and I hope there are more volumes to follow."
"I like acrostic puzzles' They re excellent for keeping my brain active."
"The longer potential answers provide for a more challenging environment."
"Good double acrostic puzzles."
"Bought copies for myself and my sister-- both enjoying it immensely!"
"I never use reference works when I do puzzles, and I hate the ones that have quotes from Ovid or the obscurer parts of Shakespeare’s history plays."
"Terrific and challenging!"
Best Puzzle Dictionaries
From Jim Carrey to Sister Carrie, Homer Simpson to Homer’s Iliad, the wide-ranging entries include 500,000+ synonyms, 3,000+ literary works, 3,000+ films, 20,000+ famous people from all fields, and more than 50,000 fill-in-the-blank clues so popular in today’s crosswords. “The largest, most up-to-date, and most useful crossword dictionary available.” (from the Introduction by Will Shortz, New York Times Crossword Editor). A must for the crossword aficionado.” (Rich Norris, Los Angeles Times crossword editor). “...this remarkable book is destined to be not just another crossword dictionary, but the crossword dictionary.” (Wayne Robert Williams, Chicago Tribune crossword editor).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Frequent usage demands a durable binding and the paperback just does not fit the bill and quickly wears out."
"When I first downloaded this book and tried to use it on the Samsung Kindle app I got very frustrated. However I wanted to install it on my Kindle Paperwhite so I purchased it again. This time I find that I can use it on the Samsung Kindle app. I haven't managed to download this to my Kindle, but for the moment, I am well pleased with the tablet app performance."
"The version now shipping has about 1500 entries updated to 2016 at the end, after the XYZ section, which includes sports, movies, politicians (i.e. foreign leaders)."
"Was in great condition for used book and good price with quick shipping."
"I will re-order this 2nd edition because it is so helpful, but it does need an update on content and a hard cover for those of us who work crossword puzzles daily and Saturday and Sunday."
"I originally bought this fro my mother in law who has a stack of crossword dictionaries a mile high."
"It contains everything from every kind of Oscar winner, scads of foreign country info, first and last name entries, phrases with missing words, singers with lists of their hits, movies with complete cast listings and foreign words."
"I've bought it for others as a gift, and the recipients are thrilled with the book. January 2010 update: Having purchased a Kindle, I was excited to get this dictionary on the Kindle, so I wouldn't have to lug out that huge book all the time."
Best Logic & Brain Teasers
Based on the science that shows that people middle-aged or older who solve word games and brainteasers have a significant cognitive advantage over those who do not, 399 Games, Puzzles & Trivia Challenges is the illustrated game book specifically created to cross-train the brain. Nancy Linde created and runs Never2Old4Games.com, an online subscription service for activities professionals working with senior citizens at assisted living residences, retirement communities, senior centers, and other senior-serving organizations.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"And for most of them, they're the types of challenges that you can read aloud to a group--or to a significant other--to enjoyably while away a long road trip. You might be asked about a wealthy socialite from the 1920s, or a slightly famous murder trial that took place during the Great Depression. In retrospect, the cover text is very revealing: the book claims these puzzles were designed to "keep your brain young.""
"A good variety of word puzzles that can be done rapid-fire like a game show while sitting around the campfire or in a car on a road trip."
"I bought this puzzle book to take on a long flight that also had a decent layover."
"Great fun."
"It is so good for your brain and a fun way to pass the time....... fun to do with a friend too."
"This book is such a terrific way to engage your mind in a fun and not toooo challenging way."
"Maybe there isn't any real scientific proof that these games help slow brain aging, but just having quiet, me-time, thinking all on my own without outside stimuli to distract me, has to be a brain-perk in itself."
"So entertaining!"
Best Puzzles
Main entries include a brief definition, a part-of-speech label, and inflected forms for fast, easy word validation. Enter your model number to make sure this fits.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"My son gets to use it, and we don't, so it evens up the play."
"Great gift along side Super Scrabble to keep player on the up and up."
"I'm no expert on Scrabble, but I'm finding this very useful in playing the Lumosity on-line games and keeping on hand when playing Scrabble with grandchildren."
"I teach English to English as a THIRD language and this dictionary makes expanding vocabulary (via scrabble play) extremely fun."
"It has a lot of words to get you out of a sticky situation when you have letters that you are sure you can't use."
"Very nice up to date Scrabble dictionary."
"As an avid player,using a dictionary definitely adds to the game.having gone through several paperbacks i thought. the additional words and hardcover would enhance the experience.Lots of new words makes it more fun."
Best Card Games
When time is up, pun makers share their puns with the prompter, who awards the prompt cards to the player whose pun he or she likes best. JO and FRED FIRESTONE, a daughter-father duo, are the creators and hosts of Punderdome®, NYC’s Most Puntastic Competition—part of New York’s comedy landscape since 2011.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"My 3 friends and I sat in a circle, drew green and white cards, and looked at them until we had a puns. But if you love puns, I would 100% recommend this game if only for the well thought out and structured green/white cards which you can use for endless fun. BONUS: There are hilarious pun jokes on the back of the cards which I discovered during my 3rd play through."
"It doesn't really give you much to go on in terms of strategy or gameplay, you're basically just forcing puns out of phrases and words."
"This game requires a good amount of thinking and definitely a love and aptitude for puns."
"I preordered three copies the moment I saw this- I know a bunch of people who love puns."
"We laughed a lot, but it can be frustrating, especially if you can't come up with a pun."
"Not really sure I like this as a game."
"Whole family LOVES to play this."
"Jo Firestone is a treasure and this game is destined to be a classic."
Best Word Games
When time is up, pun makers share their puns with the prompter, who awards the prompt cards to the player whose pun he or she likes best. JO and FRED FIRESTONE, a daughter-father duo, are the creators and hosts of Punderdome®, NYC’s Most Puntastic Competition—part of New York’s comedy landscape since 2011.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"My 3 friends and I sat in a circle, drew green and white cards, and looked at them until we had a puns. But if you love puns, I would 100% recommend this game if only for the well thought out and structured green/white cards which you can use for endless fun. BONUS: There are hilarious pun jokes on the back of the cards which I discovered during my 3rd play through."
"Jo Firestone is a treasure and this game is destined to be a classic."
"This is so much fun."
"Fun game, good price, and make you really think lol."
"Not a fan favorite."
"I was so excited for this game, but honestly it was a huge let down."
"Boring game."
Best Board Games
Parents Magazine Best Toys of 2014. Dr. Toy's 10 Best Toys of 2014. 2014 Parents' Choice Award – Silver The magic of the New York Times bestseller Press Here is now available in game form! Hervé Tullet is known for his prodigious versatility, from directing ad campaigns to designing fabric for Hermès.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I'd read an interview with him that discussed what he tries to achieve when writing a children's book - "the idea that adults and children should collaborate with the book together, the element of surprise, the connection between abstract and concrete concepts..." In this neat book, he achieves what he sets out to do... it allows your child to feel like a magician, assisted by nothing more than yellow, red and blue dots! Beginning with a simple yellow dot your child presses (which "magically" - via your child pressing it - responds by turning into two yellow dots on the second page), the amount of dots, colors, patterns and sizes of the dots change as the book progresses, with a child learning the meaning of pressing, turning, rubbing, tapping, shaking, tilting, blowing, along with varying degrees of movement (gently, a little bit, a little bit more, hard, a little bit harder, really hard) - and direction (left, right, up, down). Toward the end, your child will be clapping to make the dots larger and larger and LARGER until finally that original one yellow dot (with a white hole in the center) is taking up the entire two page spread... at which point your child's encouraged to "Quick, press the white dot", with the final page showing the original yellow dot and saying, "Bravo!"
"LOL - okay, the wonderful review before mine is so chock full of great information on the book that I don't know how I can compare. Within moments, we were surrounded by every other child in the waiting room as they watched and listened in fasciation. This is truly a wonderful little book that proves imagination is more important and more effective than batteries! I told my daughter that it had been her favorite book when younger, so she asked me to read it to her. She's now shared the book with her kindergarten class and the kids keep asking her to bring it back."
"He calls it his magic color book."
"This book is loved by the whole family and a favorite at bedtime."
"This book is SO stinking adorable!"
"Awesome book!"
"This book is fun."
"It is better for younger kids that are more easily wowed."
Best Word Search Games
The book s introduction offers helpful tips and techniques for solving the puzzles, starting with the process of elimination. For almost 20 years, Brain Games® has been the go-to name for puzzle book and magazines that are both entertaining and mind building. Based on the recognized science that games train your brain to think quickly and creatively, BG puzzles cover all bases: logic, word puzzles, cognition, spot the difference, and more. Enter your model number to make sure this fits.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"There are already a lot of reviews so this will probably get lost in the mayhem, but I would like to share what I wish more book sellers would ‘show and tell’ about their puzzle books, such as pictures of random pages and how many of each puzzle type is in the book so you can make sure you do not end up with a ‘variety book’ filled with a hundred crosswords and only a handful of the more interesting ‘outside the box’ puzzles."
"There was some writing in the one that I received and I wasn't too happy about it but it's ok. Once we MASTER this book we will be moving on to the Kindergarten book."
"They love them."
"Every time we work on it, he says it "makes his brain feel good"."
"Great book!"
"This is a good puzzle book, but I am not totally into some of the variety of puzzles."
"This is a great workbook w brain games In it."
"The crossword puzzles and other word puzzles help her work on her spelling skills."
Best Bridge
Explains twenty-five bidding conventions, including the grand slam force, lead-directing doubles, negative doubles, new minor forcing, responsive doubles, reverse Drury, splinter bids, Stayman, takeout doubles, and weak two-bids.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This is a really great resource for learning bridge."
"Last section is for duplicate player/"experts" who have time to "study" with their partners and spend a lot of time at the table."
"A nice addition to my Bridge library."
"This is the second time I've purchased this book."
"This book covers all the essentials to learn and understand the most popular bridge conventions."
"A must have for all bridge players."
Best Sudoku
The book s introduction offers helpful tips and techniques for solving the puzzles, starting with the process of elimination. For almost 20 years, Brain Games® has been the go-to name for puzzle book and magazines that are both entertaining and mind building. Based on the recognized science that games train your brain to think quickly and creatively, BG puzzles cover all bases: logic, word puzzles, cognition, spot the difference, and more. Enter your model number to make sure this fits.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"There are already a lot of reviews so this will probably get lost in the mayhem, but I would like to share what I wish more book sellers would ‘show and tell’ about their puzzle books, such as pictures of random pages and how many of each puzzle type is in the book so you can make sure you do not end up with a ‘variety book’ filled with a hundred crosswords and only a handful of the more interesting ‘outside the box’ puzzles."
"There was some writing in the one that I received and I wasn't too happy about it but it's ok. Once we MASTER this book we will be moving on to the Kindergarten book."
"They love them."
"Every time we work on it, he says it "makes his brain feel good"."
"Great book!"
"This is a good puzzle book, but I am not totally into some of the variety of puzzles."
"This is a great workbook w brain games In it."
"The crossword puzzles and other word puzzles help her work on her spelling skills."
Best Math Games
Part of the reason for the book's success is its marvelously varied assortment of brainteasers ranging from simple "catch" riddles to difficult problems (none, however, requiring advanced mathematics). In addition, Martin Gardner, former editor of the Mathematical Games Department, Scientific American , has clarified and simplified the book to make it as easy as possible for an English-reading public to understand and enjoy. A master at making math fun for his high school students, Boris Kordemsky loaded this clever collection with a wide variety of math and logic related games and puzzles dealing with magic squares, tricky weights and measures, properties of numbers, mathematical tricks, and more.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Anyone who enjoys math and logic puzzles is basically required to own this classic."
"I'm a teacher and I've been using problem in this book as daily class warm ups."
"Definitely makes your brain more aware."
"Complex to say the least, but even though it's challenging it is still a lot of fun."
"I use it in my stratagies and tactics class to encourage critical thinking and to have some fun with students."
"Plenty of ingenuity and excellent challenges that defy the imagination."
"If your kids aren't bored with it, teach them as young as possible!"
"I had expected clever word and math puzzles and I was a little disappointed to find the book devoted a lot of space to visual puzzles."
Best Fantasy Sports
A one-of-a-kind deluxe keepsake for fans celebrating Quidditch, the magical sport from J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This isn't a playable quidditch set, and for anyone who thought you could buy a full sports quality quidditch set at $18... maybe you should have read the product description a little more closely."
"I also thought it was gonna be really tiny because of the price, but it's a pretty good collectible size (not life size). And for those leaving bad reviews because the snitch doesn't have wings...have you seen the movie?"
"I really love the trunk...so many complained that it was too small, I was hoping for something smaller."
"I got the set for under $5 and I feel that was a fair price; I wouldn't pay more than that for it personally. Like others have mentioned the book is basically just the same vector clip art that's being put on all kinds of products along with a handful of box art, but personally I find the miniature book aspect to be quite charming even if the art is somewhat modernized."
"The two complaints I have are due to the quality of the box and the fact that the golden snitch is not removable."
"Though other reviewers seem to be more okay with the included book, I was more disappointed by the book than by the pony. There are some colorful pictures of various ponies in the book, which are nice (though they kind of look like clip-art), but there is a lot of unnecessary filler text that I didn't love -- for instance, some pages merely said mundane things like "Made in the 80's" or "Friends 4-Ever" which seemed completely pointless to me."
"Bought as a wedding gift for a Harry Potter obsessed friend of mine."
"The pony I received was very different (I see the image has now been updated to reflect the actual pony)."
Best Video & Computer Games
Look for the sequels to The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia , with The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts and the upcoming Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia due out April 24th 2018. He is the series producer and manager of The Legend of Zelda and won the Golden Joystick Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The opening letter from Shigeru Miyamoto sets a wonderful, celebratory tone for the rest of the book. The first third of the book, entitled "The Legend Begins: The World of Skyward Sword" is devoted to said title, the most recently released Zelda game we all played and loved. It's filled to the brim with the concept and official art that inspired Skyward's Sword brilliant aesthetic style. As one who views Skyward Sword as one of the most beautiful and brilliantly inspired video games ever made in terms of its art design and visuals, this is just fine with me. There's tons here, including a lot of really interesting ideas for characters that didn't make it into the game, like a floating Fi in a massive suit of armor or Zelda designs that are decidedly more elegant and fancy. There's also a good amount of location art that is simply gorgeous and really captures your imagination, just like the settings in the game did. What is even better about this section is the following 70 or so pages that actually chronicles, in great detail, the events of each timeline in chronological order. Sprinkled liberally through all of this are nice screenshots and art, as well as fascinating tidbits, like boxes that fully decipher the various Hylian/Hyrulean dialect text that appear in the games. This section closes with a very nice letter from Eiji Aonuma, arguably the second most important man behind the Legend of Zelda, after Shigeru Miyamoto of course. The lay-outs are nice, the printing quality is vibrantly beautiful and sharp as a tack, and the pages are crisp and clean. The binding is also high quality, which is important because this is a big book that would fall apart relatively quickly if it wasn't bound well. There are few games that capture the sense of beauty, imagination, and adventure like the Legend of Zelda effortlessly does with each and every release."
"As a Zelda fan it's wonderful to have a physical book of all game events (from 1986=2011), concept images and developer interviews."
"There's translations of some of the games in-game language systems and explanations for why certain things are as they are, for example hinting that timeshift stones and the ocarina of time are made of the same time-travel capable material. If I had to say anything negative, it would be that perhaps learning about the development decisions made during other games would have been nice, particularly Majora's mask, instead of just showing Skyward Sword concept art."
"One thing that I wish this had, and I don't know why I assumed it would... but I have a Nintendo Power magazine of Zelda from the 90's that was pretty cool."
"I say, anything that will hold his attention for that long and he will read in it daily, I consider it a great buy."
"After going through Amazon in search of gift ideas, I came across this particular one and decided it might be a good gift to purchase for him."
Best Trivia
From the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask. In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations, and consults with nuclear reactor operators. Fortunately, such people can turn to Randall Munroe, the author of the XKCD comic strip loved by fans of internet culture. For Munroe, who writes with a clarity and wit honed over eight years of writing captions for his webcomic, the fact that a question might be impossible to solve is no deterrent to pursuing it.” —Wall Street Journal Speakeasy blog. while dealing with relationships and the meaning of a computer-centric life, xkcd has become required reading for techies across the world….The Internet has also created a bond between Mr. Munroe and his readers that is exceptional. "With his steady regimen of math jokes, physics jokes, and antisocial optimism, xkcd creator Randall Munroe, a former NASA roboticist, scores traffic numbers in NBC.com or Oprah.com territory. [A]t its best [xkcd] isn’t a strip comic so much as an idea factory and a shared experience."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I love the blog and was really looking forward to this book, but buying the kindle edition was a mistake."
"This is a great way to enjoy older questions and answers over again, updated, and to share them with new people, and the new questions and answers - never featured on the website - are delightful; I won't spoil it for you, but my favorite has to be the answer to "If a bullet with the density of a neutron star were fired from a handgun (ignoring the how) at the Earth's surface, would the Earth be destroyed?" If you have even a passing interest in science and ever enjoy daydreaming about the fantastic or the ridiculous, this book is for you. Gift season is coming up; thanks to this book my Christmas shopping will be a great deal easier."
"Randall Munroe hits that oddball humor sweet spot with zany questions and actual, scientific--and most importantly, interesting--answers."
"Randall Munroe's XKCD is a cornerstone of the World-Wide Web, and he brings the same intelligence and overabundance of careful research here to absolutely hilarious (and often randomly awesome or terrible) questions."
"Best bathroom book ever... and I mean that in the very best possible way you can imagine."
"All wrapped up in a well made book sufficient for display."
"Whether it's taking a dip in a nuclear reactor cooling pool, or halting the earth's spin just to see what would happen, Monroe accepts the intellectual challenge and delivers with gusto."
"They're hyperlinked, and you can use the links on the footnote to jump back But the page bounds move slightly every time, and notes near the top activate the Kindle options rather than the footnote."
Best Magic Tricks
More than 2,000 illustrations provide the know-how behind 300 techniques, from basic card tricks to advanced levitation, along with advice on planning and staging a professional-quality magic show. Mark Wilson is first and foremost a famous magician, who the New York Times has recognized as probably the nation's leading authority on magic.” He is also the hugely successful author of numerous kits and books devoted to instruction in the magical arts including the newly released Complete Course in Magic (Revised Ed.).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"My significant other is a bartender that does magic tricks to entertain his customers, I bought this as a gift for him and he loved it!"
"This is a great book on learning magic from one of the best magician around."
"This book has detailed information for folks who are genuinely interested in learning how to build their own magic show complete with information about patter, misdirection, and prop construction."
"Grandson has really loved this gift."
"I owned this volume way back when I first started in magic, it was referred to me by a friend who owns a magic shop and he said once you read this and try some of the tricks it would be a really good start, the tricks that are within its pages, some are very easy and some are even stage illusions, many are now dated but I have found that with some rehashed patter and some updated workings these tricks are timeless, I own the Tarbel volumes and I find myself going back to this more often then not!"
"The variety is awesome and the reader may pick and choose or simply select the category of interest and concentrate on that. We had magicians at nearly every birthday party and, like most kids, I was enamored with the entire process but never pursued it beyond amateur status."
"By far the BEST book to buy first, if you're a beginning magician."
"Everything you need to know to get your magic hobby or career started!"