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HomeEverything ElseWill ShortzWill Shortz Presents The Little Black Book of Sudoku: 400 Puzzles |
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| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 63 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
76 of 76 found the following review helpful:
 5 stars for Will Shortz, 4 stars for the book design. Feb 18, 2008
By Mary Whipple
Long recognized as a great "puzzler," not just for sudoku but for his NYTimes crosswords, Will Shortz provides 400 puzzles of difficulties ranging from "Light and Easy" to "Beware! Very Challenging!" Regardless of the level, these puzzles are scrupulously fair, requiring, in my experience, only two occasions of "trailing" (and those may have been my own fault), when most other such books often require the puzzler to use this "technique" many times during the book.
"Trailing" is the controversial "technique" in which a puzzler, unable to move further in the puzzle, (desperately) chooses a number from a set of pairs and inserts it into the box. The puzzler then trails the results as they suggest other solutions involving other numbers throughout the puzzle to see if they work or if, eventually, you get duplicates in rows, columns or squares. (If you do, you have to backtrack and insert the other number from the pair, which should work.) Many puzzlers feel that this "technique" is not "logic" but guesswork.
The book is a convenient size and has a spiral binding. The puzzles are large, and the pages are smooth and very white, allowing you to write in plenty of options and do whatever erasing you may require without roughing up the surface of the page (in case you decide to start over). Some of the puzzles which look the most difficult and have the most empty spaces are, in fact, the most fun, with surprises opening up as you do the puzzle. Many are very tricky (but fair), and some will have you berating yourself for missing something that should have been obvious, especially in the most challenging puzzles. For pure fun, without the frustration which trailing produces in many of us, this is one of the best books around.
My only problem with the book concerns the spiral binding. Very soon after I started working the Demanding and Very Challenging puzzles in the back of the book, the back cover and some of the answer pages started releasing themselves from the spiral. After many annoying episodes of this, I finally released the back cover and let it hang loose. (It didn't make any difference to the book's sturdiness.) I put the pages back into the spiral, and then used household wire to overcast the spiral completely closed. That held the pages in place and solved the problem. n Mary Whipple
63 of 64 found the following review helpful:
Will Shortz + Sudoku = Great puzzling Feb 09, 2007
By R. Hubbard
Will Shortz is a fabulous puzzle editor, and this collection is one of his best. The spine of the book is spiral, which fascilitates puzzle working. Extremely high quality paper makes it easy to erase notes or mistakes. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys sudoku. It has four levels of difficulty, 100 puzzles of each level.
38 of 44 found the following review helpful:
 Disappointing format Dec 18, 2008
By J. Gatto
Don't advertise "spiral bound" if the spiral binding has an awkward hard binding over it.
One would assume that the sole reason for advertising a spiral bound sudoku book is that customers want a book that will LAY FLAT ON A TABLE. This book does not. Having nothing to do with its content, the format of this book is very unfortunate and the description above is misleading.
17 of 18 found the following review helpful:
 Pretty good little book Aug 22, 2007
By LazuliLong
Mostly, I love the spiral binding and hardcover, because I can haul it around on my breaks at work. No more trying to write on my knee without poking my pencil through the paper. But I've done about 1/4th of the puzzles and the back cover has slipped out of the binding twice. So far it's slipped back in pretty easily but it's got me slightly worried.
15 of 16 found the following review helpful:
 terrible spine makes impossible to use on lap or on table Mar 24, 2009
By artiste
WARNING!! I love other Will Shortz Sudoku books so I ordered the spiral version thinking that it would be a great format. Unfortunately, it is not a regular spiral that allows for opening and folding over to expose only the one page. The book has a huge spiral coil covered by an oversize hard plastic covering that makes the book impossible to fully open flat, let alone open and fold over as in a regular spiral notebook design. I am returning and hope to warn others about this design defect so you can avoid my troubles.
See all 63 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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