New Yorker Book of Cartoon Puzzles and Games: 200 Brain-Teasers for Puzzlers of All Levels

I was just cruising through my Big Box Bookstore to see what was appearing on the shelves for the upcoming Christmas season.In the Games section ,between a bunch of Crossword Puzzle books and what is becoming a flood of Sudoku and other number puzzle books,I spotted this little Gem.Most people who do crosswords know of Will Shortz of the NY Times Crossword puzzle fame,Robert Mankoff of Games Magazine and the famous New Yorker Magazine's Cartoons. Well, all these are combined and with some great "Thinking Outside the Box" have come up with a puzzle book that will entertain and challenge you.Some of the other reviewers have made reasonable attempts to describe these puzzles;so I won't try.What I suggest is to search it out in the store and get a feel for them. This book is just the thing needed for those who have become obsessed with those Sudoku puzzles,have been doing nothing but crosswords for years, or even those who have never done much in the way of puzzles. I'll tell you one thing;if you like puzzles,and who doesn't,and also like cartoons,and who doesn't;then you'll love this latest addition to the world of puzzles.

If you love crosswords and puzzle games and New Yorker complexity in particular, don't be without this oversized NEW YORKER BOOK OF CARTOON PUZZLES AND GAMES. All you need is a pencil and a mind to enjoy puzzles which are offered in a spiral bound large-format paperback lending to easier working than most puzzle books. Here are over eighty puzzles created by the puzzle writing company Puzzability: new blends rather than rehashes of old styles. Avid puzzle fans will find it delightfully fun. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

I love the New Yorker cartoons, and I love puzzles - so this is a perfect combination. I bought four of the books. One for myself, and three to give as gifts for Christmas. They are bound very nicely, in the spiral manner that allows the book to stay open as you solve it. The production values are very good overall. I just saw Word Play with Will Shortz who wrote the forward for this book, and must say he aligns himself with winners (I am a New York Times crossword puzzle fan, in addition to loving New Yorker cartoons.)

The folks at Puzzability -- Mike Shenk, Amy Goldstein, and Robert Leighton, all "Games" magazine alums and world-class puzzle constructors -- have done an outstanding job of putting together classic "New Yorker" cartoons with an entertaining selection of different kinds of word puzzles. Sometimes you'll work from the cartoon to the puzzle, and sometimes from the puzzle to the cartoon, but you'll end each page with both a smile and a feeling of solving satisfaction. The puzzles are extremely well crafted -- hard enough to be fun and challenging, but well this side of frustrating -- and really enhance the impact of the cartoons. Strongly recommended.

The folks at Puzzability used to be contributors to Games Magazine in its heyday when they published visual puzzles that were both amusing and innovative. Now, they've taken this same approach and applied it to the vast archive of cartoons from the New Yorker. While I was skeptical at first whether the puzzle aspect of this book would be gratuitous, I was won over quickly as I paged through the contents. The puzzle authors have clearly done their homework, finding ways to turn the New Yorker's cartoons into genuine, interesting challenges.