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Okay, genius, let's see ya get this one.
1. A Criminal Mind Puzzles book by Brain Games that will challenge your inner detective with visual and verbal crime-themed puzzles.
Via Amazon
2. Some good ol' fashioned Brain Teasers for Adults so you can work your noggin with five different puzzle categories at all levels, from Duck Soup to Head Scratchers.
Via Amazon
Promising Review: "I love brain teasers! I always do the word jumble and the crossword puzzle in the paper (I try Sudoku, but oftentimes fail at it), so I was excited to see an activity book that wasn't just crossword puzzle for once! There are five different type of brain teasers: logic, wordplay, card puzzles, chess, and Sudoku. They range from mildly challenging to damn near impossible. The layout is great, and I love that I can sit down every morning and do two or three of these (sometimes only one if I got a real mind boggler) with my coffee. An excellent buy for anyone who enjoys puzzles and likes to exercise their mind a little!" —Madam Librarian
Get it from Amazon for $11.47.
3. A book containing The 125 Best Brain Teasers of All Time because it curates logic, math, and wordplay brain teasers (along with some history). It even includes the first documented riddle in history, the famous Riddle of the Sphinx!
Amazon
Promising Review: "It starts off with 'smarty pants' level, and I just love that. These puzzles are great and reading about the origin and other fun facts is so interesting. This book is must-have for any puzzler." —Caroline
Get it from Amazon for $12.99 in paperback (also available on Kindle for $4.99 and Kindle Unlimited).
4. This Clear Acrylic Impossible Puzzle for extreme puzzle fanatics, because you cannot possibly cheat on it. Seriously, good luck.
WCKCDesigns
Get a 100-piece puzzle from WCKCDesigns on Etsy for $15+ (available in three sizes and three colors).
5. A The Scotland Yard Puzzle Book so you can try your hand at recreated "complex conundrums" faced by the detectives themselves. Of course, they're all in the form of activities — like linguistic, logic, and math puzzles, hidden messages, map puzzles, and more.
6. This MENSA AARP Challenging Brain Twisters because it's filled with 100 logic and number puzzles that'll make you feel like a genius every time you solve one.
Amazon
Promising Review: "Usually, I take my time and put puzzle books aside after an hour of play. When I first opened it, I played for five hours straight. The first Sudoku seemed like it was going to be easy, but I was wrong. After being sucked into really wanting to "beat" that puzzle, I went on to sample a few other types. I tried the Catwalk, the Fill-ins, and then three Mintonettes. When I start to feel sleepy, I hit the word search. This book is challenging and fun. Plus, the instructions and examples are clear." —J. Larsen
Get it from Amazon for $8.99.
7. A Montague Island Mysteries and Other Logic Puzzles book that lets you enter the narrative and solve puzzles with the characters in an island mansion. And, you'll learn more about them and the house along the way...
Via Amazon
Promising Review: "This is not your average collection of unrelated logic puzzles. This is an immersive story with embedded first-class puzzles where solving the puzzles reveals more of the story. The puzzles can be quite hard, but they are all reasonable (like a logic puzzle should be!). This reminds me of the Professor Layton games in book form. Good for your brain, and a lot of fun! Highly recommended for all logic puzzle fans!" —D. Knight
Get it from Amazon for $7.49.
8. This Coogam Metal Wire Puzzle set because they will grab anyone's attention and compel them to try one. Each puzzle is really two metal pieces interlocked. To "solve" one, you have to separate the two pieces. (Remember that one kid in school who had these?)
Amazon
Promising Review: "Needed something to entertain the significant other as this quarantine is involving a bit more quality time than I'm able to muster. It worked. I plan to leave them on various tables throughout the house. They are fairly durable. He did damage one slightly when trying to figure it out, but otherwise they are definitely entertaining for older kids through adults. Everyone's been fiddling with them throughout the day." —Alexandra Snyder
Get it from Amazon for $8.99.
9. These 50 Logic Grid Puzzles so you can relive your elementary school days where you looked forward to these during seat-work instead of boring worksheets.
Amazon
Promising Review: "Love logic grid puzzles. This edition is made with good quality paper and, so far, I have found the clues to be well written. I like that all of the grids are 5x5 so that pages are not wasted with 3x3 'baby puzzles.' (I expect that as I move through the book the clues will get more challenging.) I probably could have gotten by with the standard print edition, but I do like having the large print option." —Gerry L
Get it from Amazon for $6.99.
10. This Tricky Logic Puzzles for Adults for you to challenge yourself (and overcome boredom) with over 130 puzzles, including Masyu, Logic Grids, Calcudoku, and more!
Via Amazon, Via amazon.com
Promising Review: "I'm really liking this book so far. The puzzles start out fairly easy and get more challenging as they go. There is a good variety to the puzzle types and has some neat 'cryptic' puzzles that put a twist on the traditional puzzles in the book. I'm about two-thirds through the book, and it has been a great way to pass the time. The only negative is that there are a couple mistakes in the book. A couple of the puzzles have more than one solution — I double checked my solutions and they worked out, but were different than the solutions in the back of the book. There's also one puzzle (that I've found so far) that has an incorrect answer in the back of the book." —Nick Connor
Get it from Amazon for $10.99.
11. An intriguing DaVinci Hard Puzzle Box with a small compartment inside that requires you to complete seven tasks to open it.
Via DerevoMarket
Promising Review: "This puzzle was worth every penny. Enjoyed the sequential tasks and the craftsman ship is great as well. I can't wait to see other people try and open this when they visit my house." —Greg
Get it from DerevoMarket on Etsy for $120.
12. This Cryptograms book so you can (spend hours) cypher(ing) 200 cryptograms based on letter replacement and reveal interesting quotes.
13. A New York Times Best of Wednesday Crosswords book because you want to do unlimited NYT crossword puzzles on demand, not only when they're released online or in the paper.
Amazon
Promising Review: "I’ve always found the Monday and Tuesday puzzles to be fairly easy to solve and fun to do, but I could never really make much headway with the Wednesdays. I was therefore hesitant to order this book. So far I’ve worked about a quarter of the way through and have done pretty darn well. I have really enjoyed the challenging puzzles in this book. The clues are clever and the themes imaginative. NY Times and Will Shortz are the tops in crosswords IMHO!" —Matthew Bernard
Get it from Amazon for $8.28.
For more crosswords, check out other books by Will Shortz, the crossword editor of The New York Times since 1993 and puzzlemaster on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday.
14. This Difficult Riddles For Smart Kids book for some family fun as you compete to see who can figure out the riddle the fastest and stump each other along the way!
Amazon
Promising Review: "My father likes to come over and 'torture' his grandkids with riddles. He did this to me growing up and now carries the tradition on with them. Well, I decided to help them out and arm them with some riddles of their own for when their Paw Paw shows up. I have a 9-year-old and a 16-year-old, and they both loved this book. It gave them tons of riddles that were difficult enough to frustrate an old riddle pro! They had a great time stumping their grandfather.
The riddles range in difficulty, so adults would enjoy this book, too. I think this book would be great to use at a party as well with adults. Test your friends logical skills and see how many you can get! Great little book, totally worth every penny!" —Engineer Chick
Get it from Amazon for $5.48.
15. A Safecracker 40 Math Puzzle to give you a kinesthetic and math-based challenge. To crack the safe, you need to align the dials so that each column adds up to 40.
dj51florida
Promising Review: "I am just tickled pink. This was a gift for my brain-teaser-loving husband for his birthday. It’s challenging to find him something he can’t solve right away. He’s been working at it for a while and still hasn’t gotten anywhere; which I am just loving. 😂 (He’s really excited about this one too.)" —Meghan Weltikol
Get it from dj51florida on Etsy for $22.
16. This Cylinder Hanayama Cast Metal Brain Teaser because you just know you can figure out how to take it apart with a little bit of time. (And then you gotta figure out how to put it back together.)
Via amazon.com
Promising Review: "This puzzle is fun! It is smaller than I envisioned from the picture, but it is certainly a bit more challenging than your normal puzzle. Hanayama ranks their puzzles from one (easy) to six (hard), and this is ranked four. It fits that ranking. I normally can solve puzzles pretty quickly, but this one took me a little while. The first time I did get it solved, I didn't know how I did it. Then you have to put it back together, and that is just as challenging. What I like is that this isn't a puzzle you solve once, and then you know forever how, like some of them. This one you can solve multiple times before you really understand it. There are a lot of opportunities to get close to the solution, and still not get it." —Scott in MO
Get it from Amazon for $10.14.
17. A captivating Wheel of Fortune Word Puzzles book for you to pretend you're spinning the wheel and solving these puzzles with Pat Sajak and Vanna White! (Plus, the books contains different kinds of puzzles, like word searches and crosswords, too.)
Promising Review: "Like the game show? You'll love this. Carry your love for the game show with you when you are out and about or enjoy it during a lazy day at home. This is a soft cover spiral-bound book which makes it easy to use. The puzzles can be difficult but some are quite easy, just relax and let the letters flow. The only thing is you don't win any money, prizes, cars or trips when you guess the correct puzzle. :)" —TexasRose
Get it from Amazon for $11.68 (currently backordered but the listing says it will be back in stock at some point, and you can go ahead and order now; also backordered or not available at other major retailers who sell it).
18. This book of Sudoku Puzzles Easy to Hard so you can stimulate your mind and stay busy (especially as you try to break your PR every time!).
19. An extremely tricky Constantin Voidlock Puzzle that doesn't require a key but a 300-move sequence to open, which is perfect for a determined person like you.
EscapeRoomPuzzles
Get it from EscapeRoomPuzzles on Etsy for $42.
20. This What Am I?: A Collection of Traditional Word Riddles because who doesn't love some fun and challenging riddles to pass the time? You have to admit that get-wetter-as-I-dry one excites ya every time.
Wild Guess Books
Promising Review: "This collection of 'What am I?' riddles was exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a small book that I could place on a table and flip through on a whim in case I wanted something fun to ponder for a while. Too often, I think riddle books get too full of themselves and the reader is bogged down by the layout and length of the riddles. The author finds the perfect formatting: three riddles per page every time, and the solutions are on the back of that page.
The difficulty ranges from fairly easy to 'I have absolutely no idea.' They are not ordered by difficulty, which I enjoy, as it forces the reader to meander through the entire book, instead of skipping half the book as 'too easy.' All in all, a phenomenal book to challenge your brain, made even better by a brilliant layout." —Evan
Get it from Amazon for $9.95.
If you get through this one, Volume 2 is available on Amazon for $20.81 (also available on Kindle for $2.99 and Kindle Unlimited).
21. A spiral-bound Code Breaker book that will test the verbal, logic, and visual skills you'd need as a cryptographer to crack these codes.
Via Amazon
Promising Review: "If you're into codebreaking, this is the book for you. I bought it for my wife for Christmas and she LOVES it. In fact, she hasn't looked up from it since the day she opened it." —Bryan Bird
Get it from Amazon for $8.
22. This secret puzzle box for you to break into. It even has a compartment inside, making it a cool gift box for your puzzle-crazed friend to open.
KubiyaGames
Promising Review: "I got this for my brother, who loves puzzles, for his birthday. He absolutely loved it, he had a blast figuring it out!" —Courtney
Get it from KubiyaGames on Etsy for $22.
23. A Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) Puzzles themed-book because you know that there's no such thing as the perfect crime.
Amazon, Via Amazon
Promising Review: "I have bought a few of these Brain Games books, and this is the best one so far! These are not dumbed-down puzzles you can just whiz through. They take some serious thinking and figuring out, but it's so much fun trying to solve them. This is a pretty thick book with tons of different kinds of puzzles. You can't get bored with this book in the house, and it's fun to challenge your family members to solve them, too!" —Linda Brooks
Get it from Amazon for $8.
24. This spiral-bound book of Word Searches so you can simultaneously relax and get in a mental workout as you search for words of varying topics.
Via Amazon
Promising Review: "I purchased this for my husband as he can’t get around much now, and he loves it. He will usually work on it for a couple hours at a time and sometimes ask for a little help when he can’t find the words. If it’s laying on the counter when my son comes in, sometimes he will work on it for a few minutes. It’s addicting." —Barbara
Get it from Amazon for $8.
25. A Sherlock Holmes Puzzle themed-book that will make you feel like the quirky sleuth himself as you deduce the answers to these puzzles. Because, of course, for you, it's elementary.
Via Amazon
Promising Review: "My grandmother is a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes. So when I saw this I knew I had to get it for her. And I’m glad I did, she can’t put it down. She loves the puzzles, quizzes, and fill-in-the-blanks, as well as the crossword puzzles and find-the-missing-object games. I think she wants me to get her different one after she finishes with this one." —Paula hill
Get it from Amazon for $8.
26. This book of 399 Games, Puzzles & Trivia Challenges Specially Designed to Keep Your Brain Young to help exercise your brain and work your memory, one puzzle at a time.
Via Amazon, Via amazon.com
27. And finally, a BePuzzled Padlock Hanayama Cast Metal Brain Teaser that may even be harder to put back together than take apart.
Via Amazon, Via amazon.com
Promising Review: "I now own 20-some of these amazing puzzles. I've only had this one for a matter of minutes, but I felt like I just had to leave a review right away. It is hands-down my favorite so far. Now, I haven't solved it, but I've gotten it to move a couple of times in a couple of different ways, though it's still locked. But just the way that it has moved put a smile on my face like none of the others have. I will figure it out, it's only a matter of time, but this one is really got my gears turning!" —Master Brad
Get it from Amazon for $9.97.
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