An amusing and mildly edifying diversion.
Simple brain-teasers yield deep thoughts in this winsome puzzle-book.
Ciesla (The Logic Puzzle Project) includes 27 puzzles, each of which consists of a brief aphorism rewritten in code using a simple substitution key that replaces each letter with a different one. (One example: with the starter clue that all the Ts in the original have been changed to Fs and the Bs to Ls, “FM LY MS HMF FM LY” can be decoded to reveal a familiar Shakespearean preamble.) The puzzles fall in the sweet spot of modest difficulty, a smidge beyond Wheel of Fortune on the toughness scale. They require canny inferences based on the frequencies of letters and small words and the likelihoods of letter combinations; occasionally the solution jumps out in a flash of insight. Solving them one after another becomes an enjoyable, flowing experience, a kind of linguistic version of completing Sudoku puzzles. While their puzzle-solving gears turn, readers will soak up useful life lessons. Each puzzle is prefaced by an unscrambled proverb, witticism or mystic pronouncement by the likes of Horace Greeley (“The darkest hour in the life of any man is when he sits down to study how to get money without honestly earning it”) and Oliver Wendell Holmes (“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared with what lies within us”). While not quite as pithy, the ideas expressed in the solutions to the puzzles—“It has been said a person won’t be in control of his life until the day he can show that he has learned to control his emotions”—certainly bear pondering, and could exert a subliminal character-building influence over kids as they painstakingly decipher them.
An amusing and mildly edifying diversion.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1468532128
Page Count: 68
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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