A Brief History of Puzzles: 120 of the World's Most Baffling Brainteasers from the Sphinx to Sudoku

Description

From ancient riddles to modern Sudoko, people have been fascinated by puzzles. Whether they are seen as a glorious waste of time, a harmless way to spend a train journey or a valuable way of exercising the mind, the lure of puzzles has been irresistible. By using over a hundred of examples of the most mindbending, the most challenging, the most satisfying, or simply the most humorous of puzzles throughout the ages, William Hartston traces the development of brainteasers of all varieties and the increasing ingenuity of puzzle setters from ancient civilisations to modern puzzle crazes.

William Hartston is a Cambridge-educated mathematician, an international chess master and the author of The Things That Nobody Knows and Even More Things That Nobody Knows. He now writes the off-beat Beachcomber column for the Daily Express and is a viewer on Channel 4's Gogglebox.

If you love quizzes, A Brief History of Puzzles by William Hartston will let you know whom to thank. Competently charting the development of riddles, crosswords and logic problems, from the Sphinx to sudoku, it offers examples to illustrate each great leap forward in the history of brain-teasing. * Literary Review *