Amusing and engrossing.
Beguiling number puzzles that offer a change of pace from sudoku.
Benedek, an Israeli computer scientist and game inventor, offers another passel of hidato puzzles of widely varying difficulty. He starts with a bare-bones rundown of the rules: each hidato is a grid, with some of the boxes filled in with numbers; the object of the puzzle is to fill in the rest of the boxes with numbers that connect in numerical order with two of their neighbors vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. The starting number (always 1) and ending number (the same as the total number of boxes in the grid) are given, and when the puzzle is finished, the numbered boxes form a continuous, meandering pathway of consecutive numbers leading from the first box to the last. Instead of the arithmetical deduction of sudoku, hidato (from the Hebrew word for “riddle”), is more of a workout for spatial reasoning skills; the trick is to figure out the right path through points on the grid from among all the possible pathways. The solution requires imagining how chains of boxes might spread and curve across the page to connect the boxes already filled-in and pruning the many possibilities; the resulting tangle of geometric strategy has something of the feel of a game of go. Benedek includes easy puzzles that will gratify beginners and proceeds to “Medium,” “Hard,” and “Very Hard” levels (solutions are included in the back), ending with two fiendish puzzles labeled “I dare U.” These last are torturous epics that can absorb a puzzler for hours: the experience starts with a baffled search for a foothold; then, a time of exhilaration as numbers come more readily; anxiety and growing frustration as the last, most difficult regions of the grid resist all efforts; a profound exhaustion; rage at the world and all its snares; and finally, a numbed despondency that doesn’t long suppress the hunger for more puzzles.
Amusing and engrossing.Pub Date: May 31, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5141-4815-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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