Great Lateral Thinking Puzzles

by Paul Sloane, Des MacHale

"We never grow tired of good news how come' mysteries of this kind....These story brainteasers are often solved in groups...with solvers asking yes-or-no questions of the puzzle poser (the one holding this book, perhaps). A novel feature of this volume is a Clues' section containing sample questions and answers, allowing you to play along solitaire."--Games World of Puzzles. 96 pages, 24 b/w illus., 5 3/8 x 8 1/4.

Genres: Puzzles, Reference, Nonfiction, Games

96 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 1994

About the author

Paul Sloane read Engineering at Trinity Hall Cambridge. He came top of Sales School at IBM, became MD of Ashton-Tate UK, VP International for MathSoft and CEO of Monactive. He now writes, speaks and gives workshops on lateral thinking in business, creativity, innovation and leadership. He is married and lives in Camberley in Surrey. He has three grown-up daughters. He is a keen chess and tennis player and he plays keyboards in a rock band, the Fat Cats. He has written a series of lateral thinking puzzle books, many co-authored with Des MacHale, published by Sterling Publishing. They have sold over 2 million copies and been translated into many languages. He has also written two management books, published by Kogan Page, and many articles for blogs and websites. He manages the Lateral Puzzles Forum where puzzlers can set and solve lateral puzzles.

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I teach 5th grade, and the kids love the questions in this book. It's great for making inferences and backing up answers with details from each puzzle. My favorite are the Wally Tests. I just love those!!

Only the first part of the book is at a level where the kids can infer an answer, but they really enjoy it.

[Sambasivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outstanding collection. Sets your grey cells moving. Quite a few of them can be used as party time conversation starters.

[Marcus · Rating 1 out of 5]

Imprecise wording is unacceptable in a logic puzzle book containing “trick” (hate to us that term, but oh well) questions. Imprecision in wording results in statements that are not closed and consistent, but instead open to more than one path of interpretation (i.e., “ah-ha, Simon didn’t say!”) only to have the authors reply: “Well, Simon didn’t technically say, we just assumed it was implied.”

Example: p.8, G3 asks to cut a 12x12 carpet to fit a 9x16 room using the least amount of possible cuts.

Do you mean EXACTLY fits the entire room, covering the whole floor, or fits INTO the room? Yes, this is a minor distinction, and the obvious answer is the first; however, these minor wording issues indicate lazy workmanship.

If they are too lazy to make closed their problem statements, then I am too lazy to work the rest of their problems.

[Chris Peckover · Rating 2 out of 5]

The authors of this book seem not to understand what lateral thinking entails. It's where you overcome a critical assumption. Good problems have a short answer that makes you go "oh my god, DUH." Most of these problems are more like scenarios with many possible solutions.

Two stars because 25% of the puzzles are still good.

[Risshuu · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dumb.