The Healthy Brain Book of Word Puzzles

Tackling word puzzles is a great tactic to keep your mind in tip-top shape!


 


Studies show that one way to be sure your brain stays at its best is to learn new things regularly, creating new neural connections. This book offers a fun way to do just that, with a variety of word puzzles that require solvers to reorient their perspective and think differently about language. One-third of the book features Split Decisions, a popular puzzle type that author Fred Piscop contributes regularly to the New York Times. Throughout the rest is a mix of other puzzles: Bits & Pieces (in which solvers answer clues using and reusing blocks of letters), Clueless Crosswords (featuring grids partly filled in so that there is only one possible way to complete them), Double Exposure (testing pattern recognition in two different ways), Mixagrams (where words are interwoven in a simple yet confounding way), and Two by Two (in which each grid contains only two consonants… but you have to figure out which).
 

Fred Piscop is the former editor of the Washington Post Magazine Sunday crossword. He regularly creates puzzles for the New York Times, The Crosswords Club, Simon & Schuster, Creators Syndicate, and many other outlets. When Fred is not puzzling, he can usually be found running, biking, or playing senior softball; playing keyboards at local jam sessions; sampling excellent microbrews; or walking his niece’s dog, Dina. He lives in Bellmore, New York.