Wednesday, October 5, 2022

The Puzzler

Jacobs, A.J. The Puzzler: One Man's Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life. New York: Crown. 2022. Print.




First Sentences:
One winter morning several years ago, I got an email with some ridiculously exciting news. Or so I thought.

Description:
 
 
He's one of my regular go-to authors whenever I need to read something interesting, humorous, off-beat, and uplifting. He always writes about his full-bore immersions into lifestyles and topics such as health (Drop Dead Healthy), reading the entire encyclopedia (The Know-It-All), self-improvement (My Life As An Experiment), and even following religious edicts (The Year of Living Biblically). Each of these quirky tales of inquiry and pursuit is highly recommended.

The Puzzler follows Jacobs' personal tried-and-true writing pattern: 
  • pick a lifestyle or question that interests him;
  • research the history, quirks, important people, and current state of that topic;
  • interview the major figures in this field;
  • challenge himself to incorporate their suggestions and immerse himself, with the goal to understand and hopefully become a better person and solve the toughest problems.
The Puzzler explores the intriguing facets of a wide variety of puzzles, including crosswords, anagrams, mazes, secret codes, Sodoku, chess, riddles, puzzle hunts, and many more. Some of these you may not have even heard of much less have an interest in. But in Jacobs' capable hands, he gently guides you so wittily and thoroughly to new challenges and experiences that by the end of each chapter you may want to tackle more of these puzzles for yourself. Fortunately, he includes examples of each puzzle at the end of chapters for you to try, with answers in the back of the book.
 
For an example, in one section he decides to explore crossword puzzles. He is already a fanatacal New York Times crossword puzzle solver, setting his alarm nightly for 10:01pm when the next day's puzzle is posted online so he can complete it before going to sleep. He feels proud that his name was famous enough to be an answer to a Times crossword puzzle. That glow lasted briefly until he learned that, as a Saturday puzzle, only the more obscure references are used and therefore his fame really was not so widespread. He interviews Peter Gordon, puzzle maker "known for his creativitiy and deviousness," who shows him the first crossword puzzle from 1913 (reprinted in this book for you to solve). Armed with solving tips from Gordon, Jacobs gets to work on and eventually solves Fireball #9, Gordon's toughest crossword.

For each puzzle, Jacobs follows a similar pattern of description and immersion, ending with his tackling the toughest version of that puzzle. He buys a 48,000-piece jigsaw puzzle (since it is the world's largest); competes with his family in the international jigsaw puzzle tournament (as representatives of the United States since no one else had entered); and learns that the normal Rubik's cube has 43 quintillion combinations, while the 33 x 33-block version, the Octahedon Starmix, has "2-followed-by-137-zeroes combinations." Of course, he has to buy a Starmix, but after recognizing the time involved and his own limitations, farms it out to be solved for him by a Super Cuber, someone who can solve a Rubic's cube in mere seconds.

There are many other puzzles, riddles, and posers to challenge readers. All are presented in Jacobs' witty style full of information and humor. For example, here's one of the tough rebus symbol puzzle he offers for readers to try:

                    B
 
(Sorry, the answer is not "A Bee" - the real answer is below) 
 
Puzzles, to Jacobs, provide the concept of a single solution which is highly satisfying to all of us facing a myriad of problems and answers in our daily lives. A clear-cut right answer is deeply reassuring. Jacobs shares that even Barak Obama fantacized about "opening a T-shirt shop on the beach that only that sold only one item: a plain, white T-shirt, size medium. Freedom from choice."
 
Highly engaging, challenging, fun, and humorous. I just love every adventure Jacobs takes me on. The Puzzler is a fine addition to his immersion lifestyle writings.
 
       [Rebus Answer:   ABOLONE - (a "b" alone). Told you it was a toughie.
 
____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Cline, Ernest. Ready Player One.   
When the eccentric, incredibly rich developer of a virtual reality world dies, he leave his fortune to whomever can solve his mysterious puzzle clues that lead to his treasure. Of course, there are good as well as bad people trying to decrypt his obscure hints, and the chase is on.   (previously reviewed here)
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