Customer Rating:  
Summary: it got me interested in magic squares
Comment: this book admittedly is not laid out in an obviously systematic way but i m not sure that matters. it got me interested in some things that i thought were rather boring, and on the whole though i haven t read it all through yet it does seem to the makings of a very good read, though inevitably some of the puzzles will be very familiar.
the version that i have has an incorrect printing of the 3x3 "nearly magic" square on p66, the first of the two examples. the fix is fairly easy though and provides a nice additional problem for anyone interested!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Falls between two stools
Comment: For me this book is neither a "mathematical puzzle book" or an easy to read account of mathematical curiosities. It seems to be a haphazard melange of both and subsequently, due to their being no real effort to put individual puzzles/essays into easy categories, quite frankly a bit of a mess. Much of the stuff here has been done to death (the 4 colour map problem anyone?) but there is some new stuff here as well as some interesting and fun problems which justifies a 3 star review.
I just wish it had been better organised
Customer Rating:
Summary: fascinating
Comment: a well written and witty look at hundreds of mathematical puzzles, stories and jokes. I am a maths teacher and there is so much material here, it's amazing. I have already used a few of these with my classes and the puzzles have really caught their imagination. Highly recommended
although the solution to the problem on page 143 is wrong
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