Seriously difficult puzzles.

D J Ape has a (deserved) reputation of producing the most demanding puzzles. This is an excellent book but, be warned, you'd be much better off going for an alternative title (maybe Steve Aron's book)unless you are a very experienced solver who is looking for a collection of very hard puzzles.

A fab series

These books - and I have picked this one as I have been reading it to my youngest - are rare indeed: children's picture books which absorb the child and don't drive the parent barking mad with boredom.<br /><br />These books work on several different levels, and an intelligent and diligent child with a fairly simple reading vocabulary (anything from a smart Y1 to a Y4) will be kept quiet for hours: there are so many things to find on each double page that even Mum doesn't always manage it.<br /><br />Brilliant concept. Brilliant execution. Full marks.

Not so usless!

My daughter book me this book for my birthday. I have read it from cover to cover and back again. I found all the information not"useless" but absolutely fascinating. However, a warning - once you have read this book you will start ever conversation with anyone with the words"Did you know.....?". I recently got on every passengers nerves on a recent flight because I was reading it out loud. However, I am sure there are some people from that flight now starting a conversation with"Did you know....?". Brilliant book.

Origami Airplanes That Fly

If you’re looking for a book on paper planes for young people then this may be too complicated. the models very quickly require a level of skill that would be beyond a beginner. There is a definite lack of instruction as to how the planes are folded and you may need to look ahead several times to see how the current fold works out. And at least 3 of the planes are just variations of each other so you don’t end up with that many different models in the long run

That being said the models themselves are good flyers and the achievment in making them makes this a good book for Origami enthusiasts. Good paper is essential or the model will be too stiff to complete. I gave it 4 stars because the models justified a feeling of satisfaction and for the price it was well worth the money.

Fantastic cryptic crosswords!!!

I love crossword books and bought (by mistakes) a CRYPTIC crosswords book called"Crusader" and I absolutely love it!!!! It really makes you think, and sometimes tests your limits!!!!<br />Very cunning!

An easy read, but some questionable information

While I enjoyed reading this book, I found enough in it that I knew to be false or found to be unconvincing that I didn’t dare rely on the rest of it. With the title it has, I expected rock-solid facts and rock-solid reasoning based on them, and often found neither. In other words, I could out-pedant the pedant without trying too hard.

To quote some examples, the author argues for a non-Scottish origin of haggis by trying to establish the etymology of the word. This by quoting a non-existent Swedish word and a non-existent Icelandic word to prove the Germanic origins. And then arguing that Germanic roots clearly establish it as having come from outside (presumably Gaelic roots are desired?) Ignoring the fact that Germanic speech has been present in Scotland since at least the sixth century and that Gaelic has never been the language of the whole country anyway...

Or take the argument that the ’Eskimos’ do not really have lots of words for snow. This hits the problem of what is meant by ’Eskimo’ (a word not used by the peoples themselves anyway). The author quotes someone writing about the Yupik of Alaska, ignoring the fact that most people’s Eskimos are the Inuit, who according to anthropologist Hugh Brodie in his book"The Other Side of Eden" do indeed have a great msny words for snow.

And for a final example of poor argument, you can rest assured that"Puff the Magic Dragon" is not a veiled reference to drugs. The reason? The now-older-and-wiser author denies it...

Good dot to dot book

This is a very good book. 11 large double pages of dot to dot drawings with typically between 4 and 6 different dot to dots on each double page. The different creatures are colour coded and there is some text naming and in some circumstances describing each animal (pedantic parents will be pleased to note that the book is explicit that dinosaurs are always land based - the flying reptiles of the period are pterosaurs and the swimming reptiles of the period are plesiosaurs). Some of the dot to dot pictures are quite simple but some are large and complex with more than 80 dots.

For me, the best bit of the whole book is a key page at the end showing, naming and giving the correct pronunciation for 38 dinosaurs - after all these years I now know how to pronounce diplodocus.

Consistently Challenging Puzzles

Having tried various other Kakuro books and been disappointed by the lack of a challenge I started with the Black Belt version. So far this is the only book I have found where the puzzles are consistently difficult, do not repeat features across the grid, and have unique solutions.<br /><br />It is definitely NOT one for beginners. The four page introduction takes you step by step through a simple example, and does mention one basic technique overlooked by most books. However you will need to use many more techniques to solve the subsequent puzzles. Even the six warm-up puzzles (9*12 grid) are quite tough, and give a good indication of what to expect on the 144 full size 12*21 challenges.<br /><br />For those familiar with Sudoku you need to develop techniques of a similar level to pointing pairs, x-wings, xy-chains etc to solve many of these puzzles.<br /><br />Not the cheapest book in price per puzzle but well worth paying the extra<br /><br />Overall a very good collection of tough enjoyable challenges for an experienced Kakuro puzzler. Just don't expect to finish them in 5 minutes!<br />

Read for fun, not to be a better programmer

Josh Bloch/Neal Gafter have a talent for giving concise coding wisdom with rock solid examples, this book is no different to Effective Java in that respect.<br /><br />However, those expecting to hear coding philosophies and common pitfalls to avoid are not going to find them here. This book is about exactly what is says on the cover: corner cases. You may never encounter any of these issues in your entire Java career.<br /><br />That said, the puzzles are insanely difficult and I found them very entertaining to read. There are possibly 2 or 3 puzzles in the entire book that are"cheap tricks", but the rest are all to do with subtleties in the language itself. If I had any criticism it would be that the puzzles go straight from puzzle to explanation without explicitly showing the output as an intermediary step... the author suggests that you run the programs and try to reach an explanation yourself. I tend to read books when travelling or when taking a break from the computer screen, so this was not practical for me.<br /><br />If you haven't read Effective Java, I'd strongly recommend you read it first. I'd recommend this book to those that like a challenge or enjoy reading about Java subtleties.

"Guardian" Cryptic Crosswords Setters Series : Gordius

This book is for genuine crossword enthusiasts and, as such, the clues are challenging which is great. They are also extremely well constructed and are a delight to get your teeth into. I thoroughly recommend this for anyone who loves crosswords.