New York Post Sudoku 1: The Official Utterly Addictive Number-Placing Puzzle

This book is perfect for sticking in your tote bag while on the go. I enjoy the different puzzles ranging from easy to fiendish. Although I mainly stick to the difficult/fiendish section, I will have a desire to do an easy puzzle from time to time. The price can't be beat either. The font is easy on the eyes, and the paper is easy to write and erase on (mistakes? really? :) Hours and hours of pure Soduku enjoyment here! Get #2 and #3 while you're at it!

The New York Post is often credited with popularizing sudoku in the United States.... as if we needed something new that we could become addicted to! We fell for it like a ton of bricks, and now millions of us need to get our fix daily, if not more often. For those of you for whom one puzzle a day just isn't quite enough, pick up a few sudoku books so you'll always be prepared. The New York Post book series are great ones to start with, with puzzle difficulties ranging from very easy to wickedly difficult. Even the best sudoku-ers enjoy a simple puzzle from time to time (they are quick enough to do during a coffee break), and this book also makes a nice starting point for beginners.

I had never played Su Doku before, but I love numbers and logic puzzles so I bought this book! It's great. By starting at the beginning and working my way through it, I found it challenged me just enough to still be doable and fun. I highly recommend it!

These puzzles are better than crack. Every Su Doku can be solved without guesswork, and this knowledge can leave you pulling your hair in frustration as you patiently search for the one clue you know you can find if you look and think hard enough. They are more purely logical than crosswords--rather than filling their head with new words of dubious usefulness like "oleo" and "ecru," Su Doku users end up devising new logical tricks and tests, sharpening their mind like a Number 2 pencil. And there is a certain elegant beauty to the way the puzzles fall together as you start nearing the end--and a jarring ugliness to them when you go wrong early on. Make a wrong number placement near the beginning, and the puzzle becomes an irretrievable mess. This book has several virtues to recommend it. It is small, so you can slip it in your pocket and take it places rather than lugging it around in a briefcase or a backpack. (Say, for instance, you want to bring it to the bathroom with you at work--you can slip it in your pocket and no one's the wiser. Not that I've ever done that, of course, Mark. I'm just saying you could, hypothetically, do so.) Also, it gives the beginner a good overview of the game without describing every possible logic puzzle solution technique. Lastly, it provides a good mix of difficulties in the puzzle--4 Easy ones to get you started, 26 Mild ones to build your skills, 46 Difficults to really hone your skills, and 24 Fiendish puzzles to drive you to the brink of logic-puzzle insanity as you waste a large chunk of your day in a frenzy of brain-melting number-placement. (The Fiendish puzzles are very accurately named.) And, not to spoil the ending, but: 3,6,5,4,1,2,8,9,7 PRODUCT ADVISORY: This book will take up all of your free time, if you let it. In fact, you may have to limit your Su Doku consumption to avoid damage to your work and social life.

A good variety of these puzzles. Perfect size for sticking in your purse or briefcase while traveling.