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Challenging Lateral Thinking Puzzles
Paul Sloane, Des MacHale

Sterling, 1993 - 96 pages

average customer review:based on 6 reviews
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Challenging But Flawed

"Challenging Lateral Thinking Puzzles" by Paul Sloane and Des MacHale is a book of puzzles that challenges readers to not take the puzzles at face value, but approach the problems from the side, coming up with a unique answer. There are four different types of puzzles: Easy, Moderate, Difficult, and Fiendish. Following the puzzles is a clue section, which mostly consists of several questions that can be answered "yes" or "no", although a few of the clues consist of a further explanation of the puzzle, with no questions. After the clue section is the answer section with a detailed explanation of each puzzle. There are also two WALLY (World Association for Laughter, Learning, and Youth) Tests. One is easy, the other is advanced. The authors put a four minute time limit on these tests, which are more like riddles than the lateral thinking puzzles. There is no clue section for the WALLY tests.

"Challenging Lateral Thinking Puzzles" is indeed a challenging book. It's best used with a group of people with people taking turns asking the questions while others guess the answers. The easy puzzles are, for the most part, very easy. Some of them, like "The Nephew" are in fact too easy, while "Your Turn to Drive" is also easy but pushes the lateral thinking concept. However, several of the puzzles are great examples of lateral thinking, namely "Father and Son" and "Another Man in an Elevator" which has a nice twist on a classical lateral thinking puzzle. The puzzle "Wondrous Walk" is very easy but made me smile. While a couple of the puzzles in the Moderate Section are pretty easy, especially "Flat Tire I" and "Flat Tire II", a couple of them are good examples of lateral thinking especially "Saturday Flights" and "The Hold-Up". Some puzzles are too hard and need more clues, especially "Death in a Car". The Difficult Section is indeed difficult, but not in a good way. One of the puzzles, "The Protagoras Paradox" has no real answer and shouldn't have been included in the book. "The Missing Furniture" puzzle is implausible and the puzzle "Found, Lost, Found" needs more information. The Fiendish Section contains some good lateral thinking puzzles such as "The Deadly Shot", "The Cellar Door" and "Flat Out". The WALLY puzzles are more riddles than puzzles and are pretty easy with answers that will make you groan.

"Challenging Lateral Puzzles" has a few things I didn't like. The puzzles do not list what pages the clues and answers are on, so there's a lot of flipping back and forth between pages. Some of the clues aren't that helpful and some, like the last clue for "The Apple Problem" and "The Amazing Fall" are badly worded and don't help solve the puzzle. And one of the answers to the clues for "Cuddly Bears" is missing which is frustrating.

"Challenging Lateral Puzzles" is a fun but flawed puzzle book.



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great for car trips and party games

I gave this book to my son about a year ago. It has provided hours of fun and good growth in logic. Our whole family has gotten smarter I think by doing these brain teasers.









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Don't take this book too laterally ;-)

I got this book, along with 3 other Sloane & MacHale lateral thinking puzzle books for Christmas one year. At first it seemed like a sorry excuse for a gift, but as I read this one first, I found that it was a challenging endeavor of the mind. Lateral thinking, it seems, is taking a situation and finding a solution that is not the most obvious, but usually the most logical. That said, this is challenging to say the least. A good book for people who enjoy mind games.


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Good Intro to Lateral Thinking Puzzles

I picked up this book after completing "Archimedes Bathtub; the Art and Logic of Breakthrough Thinking" by David Perkins. The book expounded on the benefits of this genre of mind puzzle, and I wanted to check out some of them for myself. I was a bit disappointed in what I found for several reasons; the puzzles were identical to the most common puzzles I had come across (including "There's a man coming home"); many of the same puzzles can be found on any of the multiple lateral thinking websites; and finally many of them were so laden with historical knowledge that the problem was more a test of trivia knowledge than what could be considered a true lateral thinking puzzle.

That being said, the book was well put together with good hints and final answers located far enough from the answer so as to prevent haphazard skipping ahead to answers. Some of the puzzles were quite ingenious, and there were two review 'tests' which allowed you to monitor your progress. It is very clear that the author had spent some time with the puzzles, and the illustrations, while corny, did help to break up what would otherwise be a very short book. While the book was somewhat disappointing in the aforementioned areas, it did succeed in its most basic claim, and for that reason I would recommend it to anyone looking to learn a little bit more about the subject, as I imagine the book to be as good as any available (who knows, I may yet read a second).

If you are already well-versed in lateral thinking puzzles, this might not be the book for you. If you are looking to find out more about them, this is probably as good a place to start as any.


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reviews: page 1, 2



Lateral thinking is the key to solving these tantalizing puzzles. Packed with hundreds of brain teasers and mathematical problems, the book will test kids' powers of logic, and patience! "The logic, reasoning, and calculating required by the problems...will delight and torment puzzle fans."--Booklist. "Ninety-one `how come' mysteries....We never get enough of these."--Games.



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