A great little book to dip into

This is a great little book - full of interesting facts. I have enjoyed reading it, will return to it again and will leave it in the guest room for visitors.

Great value book

The strength of this book is the low price and large range of projects. At the lower price you do lose out on other helpful features, like explanatory text and photographs, so younger children may well need help to follow the line drawing instructions, but the actual projects are realtively easy, and good quality.<br /><br />A real bargain!

Light-hearted and informative.

Anyone who enjoys I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot from School should get themselves a copy of So That's Why They Call it Great Britain: How One Tiny Country Gave So Much to the World as I think it is more fun and informative read. <br /><br />While I enjoyed brushing up on Geography and the Periodic Table of Elements in I Used To Know That, I must admit that I skim read the Maths section and did not learn anything in the Literature chunk of the book. It might be a useful book to turn to to help children with their homework though.<br /><br />It was a different story with So That's Why They Call It Great Britain. It's an easy to read A-Z of wonderful British inventions, discoveries and heroes. I found myself dipping into it whenever could and almost always found out something new. <br />Did you know, for instance, that the chocolate bar, the I-Pod and Champagne are British inventions or that the first woman doctor in Britain and America was from Bristol or that the world's first set of traffic lights were installed in London before there were even any cars on the road? Me neither but I'm pleased I know it now!

Ult Killer 1.

Love this book. So far tried the"easiest" 20 puzzles, and only made a total hash of one.<br />They are rated to take about an hour each, typically I am spending between 35 to 55 minutes.<br />Great hours for pennies value !! Most are solved by summing 9x9 boxes, or pair/triple rows.<br />Will doubtless be getting others in the series.

Never too old for an annual!

When you are a devotee of the QI show and regular follower of its host Stephen Fry on Twitter it is good to continue to tap in to that childish side of yourself and read the annual. It provides another good reason to look forward to Christmas.During the snowy days we have had there is nothing better than big woolly socks,thick hot chocolate and a good laugh. Everyone in the house fought over their turn for it. Keep them coming, how about a summer annual too?<br />Dawn

great to help kids (and parents)

well done mr buzan - kid friendly graphics. i never finished the hard back version, but this is interesting for dads too - less theory and more doing. good for us time pressed parents to get the basics and help our kids

i before e (except after c)

I loved this book and wish it had been published when I was at school! I have bought a copy for my granddaughter for her Christmas stocking as I am sure she will find it very useful and good fun!

QI very interesting

This book is very funny and very educational. It was bought for my husband but all the family have read bits from it. It is a type of book you keep picking up to read more about. As we all watch the tv programme we knew some of the answers but because of 'general ignorance' still got them wrong. A great book at a great price.

A REAL 'English' scrabble dictionary

For all those people that want a dictionary with English, British, words in it this is the one! ;-)

The Master quiz book.

I had a great time with this book in Croatia with my family. Intelligent and witty questions with a wide range of topics for everyone.

Keeping the grey matter from turnig black.

My son bought both my husband and I a copy of The Times fiendish Sudoku as he couldn't stand us copying out the grids to try the same one on wee scrappy bits of paper with squiggly lines. That was brilliant thinking and has kept us happy through many a long wait in airport terminals.That was about a year ago and we have now sadly finished the book.(Dont do it every by the way) What joy when we discovered there were books 2 and 3! Who cares if the plane is delayed anymore!

Excellent for addictees

Great for all those who are addicted to this type of puzzle. Also good if you want to give it a try as the puzzles are graded for easy to difficult.

Schott's Almanac

I suppose you have to be a bit of an anorak to buy Schott' Almanac on a regular basis, but it is the kind of book you dip into for might be termed"useless information" - especially good over the Christmas period.

Good for kids

I bought this book for my 5 year old to take on hoilday with us as he loves puzzles and mazes. Good value for money and a range of activites to keep the young ones busy

A little brain exercise.

We have been getting the Times to share at work mainly for this crossword and the Times 2 quiz. It seemed only sensible to buy this book and I will definitely buy another in the series.

hoping to stay younger inmind

I found this book to be very useful as it does what the title says and helps many of us older generation to remember what we used to learn at school but have since forgot (at last this saves a lot of embarassment with the younger generation).

Kiss Me Deadly

150 puzzles in the hardest Times collection so far. There are 10 Moderate, 10 Tricky, 30 Tough, and 100 Deadly with the Deadlies having target times between 1 hour and 2 hours 25 minutes. The one negative is that there are too many puzzles that get skipped. A"Moderate" puzzle means too easy to waste time on to people who get their fun with Deadly puzzles.<br /><br />If you want to make things more difficult you might be able to do what I did. I had always been more attracted to Killer than normal Su Doku. I decided it was about time I learnt how to solve normal Su Doku properly. I bought Fiendish Su Doku and worked my way through it, with a few false starts as I learnt how to break through my usual stumbling blocks. Then I bought Fiendish Su Doku 2 and worked through that too. When I went back to Killer I found I was struggling to find my solving skills with this book (ignoring the easy puzzles). In theory the new skills learnt with normal Su Doku should have helped but I had forgotten some of the various ways of solving Killers. I get there in the end but with much longer solving times than previously. <br /><br />I'd never written down the techniques I used for Killers. Didn't think I needed to. But I now realise there are so many techniques that can be used on Killers that an extended distraction on Su Doku makes it difficult to remember them all, or to be able to intuit the right one to use at any particular moment.<br /><br />Oh well, the book is more bangs for my bucks now!

wouldn't be without it

I bought this book to replace the one I have had for some years - it is nearly dropping to bits with all the usage! I find it the most valuable help I have for completing all the many crosswords I do.

Good value for money

I like this book.

With 401 puzzles it is good value for money and the puzzles are well constructed. There are 2 puzzles per page, which disconcerts me sometimes but not enough to prevent me from using it and it does mean that the book is not the size of a doorstep. It's not pocket sized either but it is small enough to take on the commute. The puzzles, however, are large enough to allow pencil marks/candidates.

I very much appreciate the fact that Pete Sinden gives some pertinent information at the beginning of the book clearly stating what he considers to be the essence of 'good' Sudoku, that he is the one that constructs the puzzles and the method that he uses to do this. I like to know against whom I'm pitting my wits, if they are aware of how to construct a decent puzzle and the method with which they do this. I also appreciate that he states clearly that"No puzzle is duplicated between any of Pete Sinden’s books", which means that when you buy another book of his you know that it contains fresh puzzles.

There are no solving tips in this book, a la Carol Vorderman, which I like also. It contains only puzzles and their solutions.

I do, however, take issue with the Migraine rating and that"Migraine - inducing difficulty (number crunching for the addict)." definition. These puzzles do not require any of the advanced solving methods - as far as I'm aware - and thus I find the statement confusing. Then again I suppose that it would depend on the solver. I've been solving since November 2005 and have been known to solve a Wayne Gould rated Fiendish in 35 minutes. Fiendish and below don't require advanced solving methods either. I would say that I was addicted but not in the number crunching category. I certainly don't find Pete Sinden's hardest puzzles in this book migraine inducing either - I'm sorry to say!

The Migraine rating/definition is the only quibble I have with the book (which is why I gave it 5 stars), and I know that ratings are the hardest thing to get right with puzzles. I solve on a regular basis and this book is not the only one I possess, but I do find it entertaining and I do keep coming back to it.

So, my recommendation is : buy it, you'll love it.

Excellant

I have always enjoyed doing the JUMBO crossword. It is good not to have to wait till the Saturday to do them.<br />A great book to take on holiday