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Title: Clever Lateral Thinking Puzzles by Edward Harshman ISBN: 0-8069-9938-1 Publisher: Sterling Publishing Pub. Date: 31 December, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3 (3 reviews)

Rating: 2
Summary: If you want to test what you know this is the book for you.
Comment: It had the things you know mixed in with the things you wouldn't think of. The answers are things you would never think of. You really have to rack your brain to think of the right answer which I promise you is not totally impossible.

Rating: 5
Summary: BUY THIS BOOK!
Comment: This book was great. I loved it the puzzles streched my brain it made me a lot smarter. Hours of fun!

Rating: 2
Summary: The puzzles are fine; the answers aren't
Comment: Edward J. Harshman's "Clever Lateral Thinking Puzzles" is a rather serious disappointment. For the uninitiated, "lateral thinking puzzles" are mind exercises that discourage standard problem-solving methods and reward cleverness and innovation. One of the problems with Harshman's book is that it includes no instructions or introduction. Some sort of proem would have gone a long way to helping the uninitiated. While it would seem clear what the puzzles want (i.e., an explanation of apparently strange facts), there is indeed room to wonder.

Consider, for example, the puzzle in which a man locks his son out of the house, for which the son thanks his father. Harshman's solution is that the father's actions forced the pampered son to strike out on his own and make a living for himself. While there is nothing wrong with that solution as *an* (as opposed to *the*) answer, certainly other answers come to mind. The father could have bombed the house for fleas without the son being aware of that fact; the father then could have locked the door to prevent his son from inadvertently walking in and inhaling the noxious fumes. The point is that few of the solutions are unique, and there is really no clear way to arrive at Harshman's answer and not an alternate one that works.

In fairness, this problem is hardly unique to "Clever Lateral Thinking Puzzles." Games such as "MindTrap" and the Mensa quiz books contain similar problems, though not on the scale that "Clever Lateral Thinking Puzzles" does. And at least in the case of MindTrap, it is clearly intended to be interactive and therefore allows one person to answer questions and avoid the ambiguities.