Books

101 Checker Puzzles by Robert Pike
One, two, three and you've made a triple jump and shut down your opponent's game! Winning checkers isn't always as easy and quick as that, of course, but figure out the logic behind these 101 brilliant strategies and you will come out ahead every time. Divided into beginning, middle and endgame tactics, this great book of checker challenges will hone your skills and your analytic powers. Each puzzle showcases a different board layout with a description of what's happening: for example, "Black Flabbergasts White" reveals that very early in the contest, Black is about to make a move that will assure almost instant victory. Put yourself in the player's place and try to fathom what this stupendous, game-clinching move could be. If you're having trouble, there's a tip at the bottom of the page as well as a solutions section. The book includes American Checker Federation rules, a checker glossary and a very special extra: a fold-out checker board!  Buy this book now!

American Mensa Guide to Casino Gambling by Andrew Brisman
Walk away from every casino a winner! Here's the inside line on the games and bets that give the best advantage. Do you know whether to split a pair of aces in blackjack, which slot machines carry the worst payback, why losses are more significant at video than live keno, what is the bread-and-butter bet in craps, and if bluffing in poker really works? Beat the bank by understanding odds and probability, the "house edge," money management and the psychology of gambling.  Buy this book now!

Card Games for Smart Kids by Margie Golick, Ph.D.
Card games are great fun — and learning new games can magically enhance kids' skills! To play a game, children must master rules, develop mental strategies to compete successfully, understand the objectives, evaluate their own (and their opponents') strengths and weaknesses, learn routine procedures and probabilities, keep track of the goings-on and make long-range plans. Plus, games force them to respond quickly and to deal socially with others. Try out activities that stress language skills and reading, number concepts and divergent thinking. Buy this book now!

Challenging Brainteasers by Bernardo Recaman Santos
Puzzle these out! Math and logic become more fun than ever when they're turned into brainteasing games. Some of these puzzles use cards or marbles; others have diagrams, grids and lively illustrations; still more present their questions as a story or riddle. Here are just two examples: Look at this sentence: Dale is wrong. Using all of these letters, can you spell a single word? Or, try Non-aligned Pawns: How must the 8 white and 8 black pawns in a chess set be placed on a board so that no three pawns end up in the same horizontal, vertical or diagonal line? These puzzles will really test your smarts!  Buy this book now!

Crosswords for Kids by Trip Payne
Do you know the three-letter word for a female sheep or the four-letter name of Dr. Frankenstein's assistant? Try your hand at crossword puzzles that offer hours of challenges and amusement. They're filled with words for things that kids know a lot about — games, food, school, sports, music, geography and so on — and they vary in difficulty. Some clues are answered with one short word; others need two. If you get stumped, check the back of the book for answers.  Buy this book now!

Cryptic Crosswords & How to Solve Them by Fred Piscop
Uncover the secrets to solving these tricky puzzles and then test your newfound skills on some of the toughest examples you've ever seen! The first part of the book features in-depth, step-by-step notes and annotations explaining how to solve each type of clue. Learn how to recognize "flags" signaling hidden words, anagrams, charades, homophones, reversals, containers, deletions and double definitions. Practice on the samples where the clues may appear to make sense on the surface, but dig deeper and you'll see that each one has at least two meanings. Once you've grasped cryptic logic, try the real thing with 19 increasingly difficult, bigger puzzles.  Buy this book now! 

Great Word Search Puzzles for Kids by Mark Danna
Question: You're not at a loss for words, you just can't find them! What are you doing? Answer: You're working on challenging word search puzzles. Every puzzle has a theme and includes a series of related words hidden among a grid of letters. All you have to do is look for them. Are the words spelled vertically, horizontally or diagonally? Don't forget to check backward as well as forward. Now, here are some more words: provoking, stimulating and entertaining. Together, they describe the awesome puzzles in this collection.  Buy this book now!

Hard-to-Solve Brainteasers by Jaime & Lea Poniachik
The solutions to these tantalizing teasers take common sense, not great knowledge. Meet a strange collection of humanity: the harem of the Great Tamerlane, Englishmen stranded on a desert island and the twins Peter and Paul, one of whom always tells the truth and one who always lies. Take on the fiendishly frustrating Hidden Words and Secret Numbers, and play dominos with no dots. Hints and clues are available along the way, and so are the answers.   Buy this book now! 

Hard-to-Solve Word Puzzles by Henry Hook
Your brain will work overtime to come up with the solutions to these clever word games. Each one has a little twist, something unusual to keep crossword and other puzzle lovers on their toes. Around and Abouts will get heads spinning in search of the letters that fit in a circular grid; "around" answers go counterclockwise, while "about" clues overlap them in a clockwise fashion. Work it out from Tops to Bottoms, where two letters fit into every square; Crushword also crunches several letters — sometimes more than four — into each grid. Answers to Weavers clues form a continuous chain, with the first letter fitting into a central starred space; the next four go into adjoining numbered spots. The rest shuttle back and forth across and around the diagram. This book also includes Quadrants, Crazy Eights, Catching Some Z's, Siamese Twins, Honeycombs and other great puzzles.  Buy this book now!

Ingenious Puzzles for Word Lovers by George Bredehorn
It's a language lover's delight — a tempting variety of intriguing word puzzles. Almost none use traditional clues, so you won't face those weird words that pop up in everyday crosswords. Games include complete mini-grids that already have all the vowels but need two consonants (repeated as often as necessary) to fill in the blanks. Test your skills on Split Decisions, Anagram Loops, Mixagrams, Fraze Its and other unique inventions. You won't go back to ordinary crosswords again!  Buy this book now! 

Match Wits With American Mensa: Test Your Trivia Smarts by Peter Gordon
Calling all trivia buffs! Compare yourself to the cream of the crop as you field the same questions that were sent to members of American Mensa with an interest in trivia or puzzles. The percentage of members who got the question right is given along with the answers. Pit your IQ against theirs in five different categories: Movies and Television; Music, Arts and Letters; Sports and Games; Places; and History and Science. You just might find out that you're a trivia genius!  Buy this book now!

Mensa Math & Logic Puzzles by Dave Tuller & Michael Rios
Join the ranks of the geniuses and leave behind the merely brilliant! Try to figure out 20 tough types of puzzles like the ones found at international puzzle competitions. These puzzles require no verbal skills to solve; you just need your logical brain. How hard can they be? Simple arithmetic, a sharp pencil (with a full eraser) and paying close, close attention are all you need. Follow the twisting paths made by worms crawling across triangular grids. Forecast weather patterns by detecting rain cloud patterns in a numbered diagram. Find lost fleets of ships in grids where only a few different shapes are visible. Rearrange dominoes according to a diagram; the problem is, the edges of the tiles have been removed. More fun awaits you with hex loops, skyscrapers, lighthouses and other suddenly fiendish objects.  Buy this book now! 

Mighty Mini Crosswords by Trip Payne
Don't be fooled by their size! These 60 miniatures, created by a puzzle-maker whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker and Games, contain mostly short words, but they're tremendously challenging. Some clues involve hard trivia about a wide variety of subjects; others match easy words with hard synonyms; still more involve tricky plays on words. A few are actually easy — just to keep you off balance.  Buy this book now! 

Mighty Mini Crypto-Quotes by Leslie Billig
Become a word detective! With these quotations in code, each letter of the quotation has been replaced by another letter. See how quickly you can decipher the code and figure out the quote. When you get really good, you only need to figure out a few letters — but beware, they get harder as you go along.  Buy this book now!

Mighty Mini Mind Bogglers by Karen C. Richards
They're small, they're tough and they'll challenge your mind. Each of these word, logic, math and visual puzzles is sure to make you scratch your head in wonder and amazement. Test your skill by finding the four-leaf clover and a perfect star, get the high score in a pinball game, decipher a joke and its punchline written in code — every puzzle will dazzle your mind and challenge your intellect.  Buy this book now!

Nearly Impossible Brain Bafflers by Tim Sole & Rod Marshall
If you answer all 167 of these tricky number, word, chess, logic and spatial games, you must be impossibly smart. Try to decipher a Top 40 song chart, decide whether you'd rather a tiger chase you or a zebra, and much more. Answers are provided.  Buy this book now!

Play Cribbage to Win: Official MENSA Game Book by Dan Barlow
It's a race around a board that takes luck and skill — and if you want to reach the finish line first, here are the rules, the skill-building quizzes and the cleverest tactics needed to win. If you've never played before, you'll get an explanation of the game's basics and scoring — who goes first, dealing and discarding the cards, and moving the pegs, all with expert tips to put beginners on the right track from the start. The detailed coverage focuses on such topics as what to do when the cut is irrelevant (when the dealer will lose if he doesn't peg out), strategies in the play of the hand, ways to speed up the game and almost any potential situation you'll encounter. For those who already play, advanced advice will take you to the next level. This book also includes information on the American Cribbage Congress, which runs tournaments and clubs.   Buy this book now!

Play Winning Checkers by Robert Pike
"A book for both beginning and advanced players. Pike points out the benefits of this multigenerational, all-inclusive, interactive game and recommends it to improve concentration and the ability to deal with complex situations. Early pages discuss the history of this ancient game. Part Two is devoted to strategy and tactics and offers over 50 easy-to-follow diagrams on plays at the beginning, middle and closing of the game, and pitfalls such as the 'doghole.' Advice for setting up a checkers tournament (including a sample scorecard and schedule) and Rules of Play and Laws for Standard American Checkers ... conclude the volume. The back cover folds out to become a board with numbered spaces so readers can follow along with the diagrams, and the spiral binding makes the book easy to consult." — School Library Journal    Buy this book now!

Quick-to-Solve Brainteasers by J.J. Mendoza Fernandez
You'll figure out the answers to these 187 logic puzzles and riddles once you catch the tricky wording. Take this dare: My bird can fly faster than any supersonic plane. Here's how: If you put my bird inside any plane and make it fly in the same direction as the plane, it will go faster than the plane. "The name Mensa speaks for itself. This is for the ultimate brainiac, or those who enjoy intensive mental workouts." — Chicago Tribune  Buy this book now!

Word Search Puzzles for Kids by Mark Danna
Show off your smarts on sports, music, famous people, TV shows and dozens of other subjects. Try all 56 puzzles and find the hidden words that are written left to right, right to left, up, down and diagonally. Test your wits on school stuff, camp fun, words with the letter X, horror movies, Internet terminology, outer space, dinosaurs and more. Each puzzle has a slightly different style, but all come with jokes, little-known facts...and the answers!  Buy this book now!