The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Logic Puzzles

Rating:
Summary: Too many Errors
Review: Add another to the list of frustrated puzzle solvers !!

Rating:
Summary: Full of logic errors and typos - typical for this author
Review: I give credit to the book for being a fairly large compliation of logic puzzles (I love solving logic puzzles). Volume, variety and interesting story/scenarios are the reasons that I gave the book 3 stars instead of 1 star.

But the book is FULL of errors. Some are typos with little impact (mention of a "yellow" serpent when all of the logic statements refer to a "blue" one). Others are typos with heavy impact (failing to put a "not" in one of the logic statements, discovered by looking at the "solution").

But more significant are the logic errors. Norman draws conclusions that are not valid from the info that he provides. Usually, this centers around exclusion cases. Often his puzzles have multiple "correct" answers, but he fails to address other possibilities in his "solution" or he provides a basis for eliminating them that is not logically accurate. P2-3 is an excellent example of that.

I also have one of Norman's False Logic Puzzle books and it is beleaguered by the same problems. He needs to find a capable person to go over his work before he publishes it.

All in all, it's a good book if you are looking for a bunch of puzzles to solve and you are comfortable knowing that you are right and the book is wrong if the puzzle as stated has multiple or no solutions. I.e. if you just plain don't need the "solutions" in the back of the book to solve the puzzle or verify your solution.

Rating:
Summary: Full of logic errors and typos - typical for this author
Review: I give credit to the book for being a fairly large compliation of logic puzzles (I love solving logic puzzles). Volume, variety and interesting story/scenarios are the reasons that I gave the book 3 stars instead of 1 star.

But the book is FULL of errors. Some are typos with little impact (mention of a "yellow" serpent when all of the logic statements refer to a "blue" one). Others are typos with heavy impact (failing to put a "not" in one of the logic statements, discovered by looking at the "solution").

But more significant are the logic errors. Norman draws conclusions that are not valid from the info that he provides. Usually, this centers around exclusion cases. Often his puzzles have multiple "correct" answers, but he fails to address other possibilities in his "solution" or he provides a basis for eliminating them that is not logically accurate. P2-3 is an excellent example of that.

I also have one of Norman's False Logic Puzzle books and it is beleaguered by the same problems. He needs to find a capable person to go over his work before he publishes it.

All in all, it's a good book if you are looking for a bunch of puzzles to solve and you are comfortable knowing that you are right and the book is wrong if the puzzle as stated has multiple or no solutions. I.e. if you just plain don't need the "solutions" in the back of the book to solve the puzzle or verify your solution.

Rating:
Summary: A fun book with too many errors.
Review: I have enjoyed logic puzzles ever since I was first given one in math class in 8th grade, so when I recieved this book as a Christmas present this past Christmas, I was excited to dig in and rub my brain cells togeather.

Unfortunately as two other reviewers have mentioned, I too have found that this book has a good deal of errors to it.

While I admit that no author should be expected to be perfect, the point of a logic puzzle is to logically deduce withheld information to come up with the answer to the proposed problem, however this becomes impossible when not enough information is given to begin with and the reader has to jump to a conclusion, and merely hope that it is the same conclusion that the author made. I found an example of this in problem number P3-1a last night, which led me to write this review. Hopefully in the future the author will take more care in the puzzles he creates to make sure that they actually have a solution!

Rating:
Summary: Where was the proof reader?
Review: Puzzles are interesting, but too many errors in printing as one of the other reviewers noted. In one case, I disagree with the answer. In another case, there were multiple answers, not noted by the author. And there were instances, ( more than one) where the author referenced non-existing statements in the puzzle.