SOLVED. General nonfiction: book that has thought puzzles that give a scenario that a 'host' plays something like 20 questions with a group. [s]

[Gordon]

Years ago, a coworker had a book that had these brief stories in it that had a hidden back story. The 'moderator' would read the story and then people would ask a series of questions to try to guess the back story. I never got the name of it, but it was published prior to 1997.

[Kris]

Gordon, is this book about a TV show like the Canadian "Front Page Challenge" (e.g., "The Front Page Challenge Quiz Book" (1979) by Charles Weir). Guests included international celebrities -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_P...

[Adele]

If the questions must be yes/no questions, then those are commonly called lateral thinking puzzles. There are many books. Here are some I own that were published prior to 1997:

Lateral Thinking Puzzlers
Great Lateral Thinking Puzzles
Challenging Lateral Thinking Puzzles

And a couple I don't own:
Lateral Thinking Puzzles: A Cocktail of Conundrums for Connoisseurs
Fantastic Lateral Thinking Puzzles

[Gordon]

Bingo! that sound exactly like what I was thinking of. thank you!

[Gordon]

Kris wrote: "Gordon, is this book about a TV show like the Canadian "Front Page Challenge" (e.g., "The Front Page Challenge Quiz Book" (1979) by Charles Weir). Guests included international celebrities -- https..."

Kris,
Thanks, but that wasn't quite it. Adele hit it. That sounds exactly like what I was thinking of. I will look into those.

Thank you.

[Kris]

Glad you found your book, Gordon. Is there one particular title suggested by Adele that best matches what you're looking for?

[Gordon]

Kris wrote: "Glad you found your book, Gordon. Is there one particular title suggested by Adele that best matches what you're looking for?"
It was the general topic of Lateral Thinking. If I had to call out one title, I would say it was Great Lateral Thinking Puzzles. That got me to look at the titles and I recognized the name of one of the puzzles I had heard of.

[Kris]

Great, thanks for the confirmation. It helps us to close the request.