5 comments about The Official Book of Hanjie.

1. This is the WORST book on Hanjie I've ever seen. The author has tried to construct on the regular 5 block grids, but he can't seem to get the hang of it, so on almost every puzzle, you have rows and columns, sometimes up to three or four on each side, that you have to black out. This makes the 5 block grid almost useless for counting and placement. The easy puzzles are too easy and the hard puzzles have too many puzzles that you have to guess where to start. I am really, really sorry I wasted my money on this book, and I recommend that nobody else do it.
   
   The only reason I gave this book even ONE star is because Amazon won't let me do this review without a star rating. In reality I would rate it as a -3 stars!



2. The puzzles are not well thought out and must have been done in a hurry. Every other Hanjie book I have done is far better than this one. It's not even fun.



3. I'll keep this short. Buy this book only if you've gone through every other hanjie puzzle available to you. As other reviewers mentioned, some of the grids are way to big for the puzzle (lots of padding). But my biggest complaint by far is the fact that some of the puzzles are indeterminate. In fact, the very first puzzle I did in the book forced me to guess. I'm guessing this book was a quick cash-in by the author. Obviously, he didn't do his homework on this one.



4. I wish I had read the reviews from others earlier. But I do feel a lot better now.
   I had always been confident about my puzzle solving skills until I spent time on this book --- I couldn't believe that so many of them did require you to guess,(what's the point?!), or they left you clueless. I got so frustrated everytime I had to leave an unsolved puzzle behind and move on to the next one. I really started wondering if I was too dumb for this. Now I know they do require you to cheat...
   I'll just leave this book alone as soon as I get other puzzle books.



5. The compiler, Timothy E Parker, has not even bothered to check that these pixel puzzles are solvable (let alone the degree of difficulty). While able to solve all puzzles in other books, I am stumped on number 66 for example, without being able to fill in a single cell! Other puzzles in this book are trivially easy.
   
   He even has the name of the book wrong - they are pixel puzzles, what on earth is Hanjie? And what makes him "official"?
   
   Moreover, the example and strategies shown in the Introduction, do not even included the most basic techniques.
   
   "The world's most syndicated puzzle compiler"? Must refer to quantity not quality.

2 comments about The Arithmetic of Life and Death.

1. While books on arithmetic certainly aren't for everyone, I found this one to be interesting, and at times fascinating. My favorite chapter, and one that I plan to use at my daughter's school is on how 8th graders can get a job that pays $45/hour. "What kind of job is that," I'm sure you ask... The answer, of course, is "Stay in School". Since high school graduates on average make significantly more than dropouts, you can assign that difference an hourly rate for the hours that remain till graduation day. Sometimes interesting, sometimes fascinating, sometimes a bit of a stretch, but for an engineer, math fan, statistician, etc., definitely worth the buy.



2. This excellent book answers several questions that I have always wondered about - but never knew how to approach them. It also provideds support for issues I feel strongly about but did not understand why. It clarifies why some counter intuitive actions may be so effective. Finally it provides support to those of us working with young adults on how and why to take the proper long term actions. He hints at why rapidly finishing high school and college will provide much more income over the long run.

   Math is really only a small building block in this book. No advanced math is required, just addition and averaging. The math is a tool - a simple effective one at that- and nothing more. The main focus is providing solutions to issues one feels strongly about but does not have a clue on how to attack them.

   This book has also reminded me of a few ways I better improve myself. I stick to the speed limit and no longer tailgate!!!!!

   I just wish Mr. Shaffner would write another book!!!!!

3 comments about Mathematical Recreations and Essays (Dover Books on Mathematical and Word Recreations).

1. This is a classic collection of mathematical recreations. Originally written by W.W. Rouse Ball around 1900, this edition has been updated by the great geometer H.S.M. Coxeter. It is a comprehensive first source for information about magic squares, Platonic and Archimedian solids, "Knight's Tours" and other chessboard recreations, and just about any other variety of math-related puzzle you could name.

   For a mathematician, Coxeter is an excellent writer, and the book is quite accessible, even to relative math novices. Fans of Martin Gardner's books, of his "Scientific American" Mathematical Games columns, will want to own this. And because it's published by Dover, the price is right, too.




2. This is a timeless classic and a primary reference
   for recreational mathematicians. And the price
   is unbeatable.



3. Any fan of mathematical puzzles will go ape over this thoroughly researched, timeless classic. Even for jaded scientists in their forties (such as me) and beyond, there's always some new gem to be discovered at the turn of a page. The scope of the book is immense, ranging from all manner of "classical" recreations to the puzzles of antiquity (e.g., squaring the circle) to the history of pi to the structure and functionality of the kaleidoscope. It's all here!

No comments about Polyhedra Dice Games.

1 comments about Lewis Carroll's Games and Puzzles.

1. Lewis Carroll was of course one of the greatest and most influential children's writers who ever lived. He was also a mathematics lecturer at Oxford who wrote excellent books on logic. It has been said that these were two halves of a split personality, but this book is proof that they were not. Here are some wonderful puzzles that unite the children's writer and the mathematician, and will appeal to everyone who has the slightest trace of mathematical ability. Edward Wakeling, a noted authority on Lewis Carroll and himself a mathematician, has done a good job assembling this book.

1 comments about Kakuro Puzzle Book: 120 Original Cross Sum Puzzles (Kakuro).

1. This was the first Kakuro book I picked up, and still the best. The puzzles are a little on the easy side, although some will require hours to solve. The paper quality is good, there is white space around the margins for notes and calculations, the cells are large enough to pencil in trial solutions, and the tutorial section is the best I've seen.

2 comments about Will Shortz Presents Easy to Hard Sudoku Volume 2.

1. This puzzle book was for my husband and he has thoroughly enjoyed working them. He opened the book and started the puzzles the day they arrived, great book.



2. Will Shortz does a great job on his Sudoku books. Volume 2, however, is smaller sizewise and harder to work with than Volume 1. That is my only problem with it.

No comments about Geometry and fractions with tangrams: Grades 3-6.

1 comments about 40 Puzzles and Problems in Probability and Mathematical Statistics (Problem Books in Mathematics).

1. What an excellent, excellent problem-puzzle book! This book lays the groundwork for puzzlers of the 21st century.
   
   At a buck a puzzle, every aspiring/amateur probabilist should buy this book... and while you're at it, buy one for your dramatist brother.

1 comments about Kakuro: Book 1 (Kakuro).

1. Good puzzles, properly graded, but a tad stingy -- there are only 100 of them. The grid uses an unusual color scheme that bugs me! An even better book is the successor, "Kakuro Book 2" (Virgin Books). 200 puzzles and the traditional grid.