The Puzzler

 The Puzzler

By A.J. Jacobs

What makes puzzles—jigsaws, mazes, riddles, sudokus—so satisfying? Be it the formation of new cerebral pathways, their close link to insight and humor, or their community-building properties, they’re among the fundamental elements that make us human. Convinced that puzzles have made him a better person, A.J. Jacobs—four-time New York Times bestselling author, master of immersion journalism, and nightly crossworder—set out to determine their myriad benefits. And maybe, in the process, solve the puzzle of our very existence. Well, almost.

In The Puzzler, Jacobs meets the most zealous devotees, enters (sometimes with his family in tow) any puzzle competition that will have him, unpacks the history of the most popular puzzles, and aims to solve the most impossible head-scratchers, from a mutant Rubik’s Cube, to the hardest corn maze in America, to the most sadistic jigsaw. Chock-full of unforgettable adventures and original examples from around the world—including new work by Greg Pliska, one of America’s top puzzle-makers—The Puzzler will open listeners’ eyes to the power of flexible thinking and concentration. Whether you’re puzzle obsessed or puzzle hesitant, you’ll walk away with real problem-solving strategies and pathways toward becoming a better thinker and decision maker—for these are certainly puzzling times.

I'm cheating, I suppose, or at least, bending the rules in myriad ways. Fitting, probably, for a book that is all about solving puzzles by thinking outside the box. Using your creative brain to figure out mind teasers and word benders. As to how I'm bending the rules, well, the book came before the ending lines. I didn't read the book because of the ending, but you have to admit as endings go, it's a pretty good one. And yes, it's not the last line of the book, but I'm considering everything after to be more like... appendixes. The final final line, is the solution to the puzzles that have come before (and one I freely admit to not solving myself).  And finally, it's not one line, but two:

"Only 1,298,074,214,633,706,907,132,624,082,305,018 moves to go.

After that, I promise to quit puzzles."

I'm obviously the target audience but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Typically when someone writes a whole book about puzzles it seems like they try to compensate for the subject matter by taking an ultra scholarly approach to it, which sucks all the fun out of the fun in the first place.  In The Puzzler, Jacobs knows what we're here for: puzzles! Some hard ones, so we have a challenge, some easy ones, so we can feel triumphant.

I appreciated not only the approach but the scope of it. Clearly he can't cover every puzzle type ever but I think within the constraints that he had, there was good coverage. I will however admit to some outrage on the absolute travesty of not including logic problems,  which are both a favorite of mine as well as, I think, a classic in the genre. But of course, jumbles, acrostics, word searches and others (not to even mention Tetris and other video game puzzles) didn't make the cut either. And even the ones that were included couldn't be fully plumbed either. 

I will say that as much as I appreciated the light, personal tone of the book, it was vastly more political than I expected. I wasn't surprised by content of the comments so much that they appeared at all. In a world where it often seems like everyone who is even mildly in the public eye must be sanitized for broad consumption, it offered a little insight on our erstwhile puzzler. And he struck the right balance, I think, of humility and curiosity (of which he mentions the importance of multiple times) and is an engaging guide for those of us interested in the games people play. He reminds us about how much joy there is in solving puzzles for the sheer sake of solving them. Even if, as he admits, we have to bend the rules a bit to do it (like getting someone else with more experience to solve it for you).

I certainly hope that Jacobs has as much fun writing it as I did reading it. As a lifelong puzzle addict myself (although not as dedicated to the wordplay puzzles as Jacobs is, I will admit to already knowing the difference between labyrinths and mazes before picking this up) I'm newly appreciative to the creators and the others who love and support the puzzlers. By coincidence, I'm entering my first speed puzzle competition next week. Fingers crossed I don't come last. 

2: A Book You Want To Read Based On The Last Sentence

The Will of the Many

 The Will of the Many

By James Islington

The Catenan Republic—the Hierarchy—may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilized society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus—what they call Will—to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy's ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.

Although I'm sure it would improve my mind more to read about real educational methods, I am using this to count towards the prompt, a "non-traditional education" even though I suppose one might argue that in the pantheon of fantasy/sci-fi fiction, sending children to a school in which at some point a bunch of people die is practically de rigeur now. 

Anyway, this book has a lot of problems, but it's still a very satisfactory read, and I'm very much looking forward to the second, which will hopefully come out before the end of the year. 

So Vis, our erstwhile hero, gets picked up after drawing notice at his regular 9-5 job at a prison and his extracurricular job at a fight club, just as he's wondering how to solve his own dilemma of not wanting to cede Will to the stone pillars of well, semi-slavery, I guess. His benefactor wants him to solve the mystery of how his brother was murdered (and the resulting cover-up) and Vis wants a way that'll get him out of bowing down to the government. It's a win-win. 

And it turns almost immediately into a lose-lose for Vis, as he realizes that his new benefactor will send him to life imprisonment (which, as Islington has imagined it, is both horrifying to imagine and yet also easy to see the justification. The book starts in prison and it's a great choice to draw the reader in and show it firsthand), and there's also at least one other shadowy organization pulling the strings who threaten what may be the only thing worse than prison: revealing his true identity, as the son of a deposed ruler, on the run after his family was murdered during the coup in what is later called by one of the Romans, a "bloodless transition ". 

The first problem: Vis is supposed to be 17, but he sounds like he's 25 going on 40. Sure, I guess I don't know many 17 year olds who grew up as royalty and then have spent the last three years in hiding, but it's unbelievable, even in a world where someone uses magic to replace their eyeballs. Vis is still a really compelling character and personality, so it doesn't distract from the story except where we're reminded that he hasn't yet turned 18. But it begs the question - why not just make him 23??

Second, Vis is good at everything. No, wait, scratch that, he's EXCEPTIONAL at everything. This one did begin to wear a little bit by the end of the book, since so many of his obstacles seemed to be solved by, "let me employ this skill that they're supposedly better at than I am, except I'm actually a surprise genius at it." It's explained due to his pre-orphan education but seriously: he speaks seventeen thousand languages, duels better after trying out new tech three times (not a joke) than people who have been using it for decades, swims like a fish, knows Roman chess strategy backwards and forwards, makes friends with wild animals like he's Steve Irwin, and I'm sure his singing voice is better than yours too. But I let it slide because at the end of the day, Islington's genius is that we still WANT Vis to win, we still want him to cut the belly of the empire open and gut it like a fish.

He does this partly by making Vis both incredibly noble and incredibly hot-headed. Despite his preternatural advantages, it never seems like a sure bet that Vis will win because of his two dueling problems: his temper, which frequently gets the best of him, and his refusal to stoop to solutions which harm other people (although ironically he does end up killing or harming quite a few himself). There's an important scene before he arrives at the school when he is meets an old acquaintance of his (pre-coup) who threatens to murder vast numbers of Roman citizens. As the acquaintance argues, anyone who supports the system is guilty, including the people at the bottom of it, and doing nothing to stop it would be both the easier thing to do as well as be a sort of revenge against the people who murdered his own family. But to Vis' credit, he takes a stand. 

The third and last way I will complain about Will of the Many never occurred to me while I reading the book, and but will probably have the most influence over my enjoyment of the series as a whole: in a world where people can be given strength or Will from others and women are told to begin bearing children by age 22 "for the glory of the empire" or pay a hefty fine, the omission of the threat of rape is a bizarre one. Maybe you could say, well, Vis is a 17 year old man, he doesn't think about it. But the author isn't 17. I cannot conceive of a world which prizes childbearing as this one does (the tax is mentioned multiple times in the book) that wouldn't also result in an incredibly lopsided male to female ratio in the school and public life. Half the main characters are women, and the rule gets handwaved away over and over again.

And for all the violence that happens, rape is NEVER mentioned, not even to say, "well the punishment is so bad that we wiped it out". I have to assume there's a reason he included the tax in the first place, so maybe we'll get an explanation later, but I just come back to the idea that there shouldn't be nearly as many women in the school in the first place. It's like going to a movie set and realizing all the food is fake and the houses are just walls. It brings the whole illusion tumbling down. I'm not saying I want this story to include rape: I don't. But within the internal logic of the world that Islington has created, it's a glaring omission that it's never addressed.

Nevertheless, the ending blew me away, and I am HYPED for the next one. 

 14: A Book About A Non-Traditional Education