The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book: A World Tour of Languages and Alphabets in 100 Amazing Puzzles (Alex Bellos Puzzle Books)

I am obsessed with logic puzzles, but I generally don’t step too far outside of the grid puzzles/recreational math sphere. This book scratches the logic puzzle itch while venturing into a new type of terrain - language!I am no polyglot by any stretch of the imagination, but no outside language skills are needed. This book is challenging, but the majority of the problems can be solved with logic alone (no guessing, and minimal amounts of having to make small leaps).As we go through a huge number of language puzzles, the author also gives background to the etymology and evolution of language (and sometimes numbers) and some other fun facts. For instance, I can now generally determine one of the parents and/or grandparents names of an Icelandic person just by looking at their last name(s).Highly recommend getting this book (preferably in the physical form) if you’re looking for an intellectually stimulating way to spend an afternoon (or 5!). This is the first book of its kind (at least that I’ve encountered) and as someone who goes thru logic books like a child goes through candy on Halloween, a must have.

I bought it to read on vacation (in a few weeks) but made the mistake of looking at it and now I'm going to have to get another book for vacation, as this one will be done.Buying two as gifts for my sister who teaches English, and friend who is a polyglot professor of Antiquities.As it says, if you like language and logic you will 100% absolutely love this book!

I love learning languages and puzzles. Perfect combination to both!

(Tad long of a review, overwhelmingly positive, but look at end and pic for why 4 instead of 5)Had this book in my cart for a while before I finally pulled the trigger and man am I happy I did. I'm not too far in, but these puzzles are so much fun!!! The added context and information gives insight into solving the puzzles as well as the background/purpose of the various codes, shorthand, and languages.As the Intro puts it "A good puzzle gives you the thrill of achievement and the joy of discovery at the same time" and so far, this book has delivered! Would recommend to any language or puzzle loverNow, if you're wondering why a 4 instead of 5:Totally 5 worthy, however, I'm ~20 pages in and found a couple errors on a puzzle 😓You are often given a list of examples and asked to decipher the rules of the code/cypher from it.In the Soundex puzzle, I felt confident I had deduced the conversion process and decided to do one in reverse, but was completely baffled when I checked. I couldn't figure how the Soundex would have been generated from the given name, but my solution was consistent with most of the answers so I finally decided it wouldn't be cheating to verify the examples we were provided. Sure enough (tested on 3 different sites) some of the examples were incorrect and my solution was verified after the corrections were madeI know it may not seem huge to some, but if you intend for me to solve based on the examples provided, THEY ALL NEED TO BE CORRECT!!!!I don't care if a random word or two in the passages were misspelled, but where I need thorough editorial review is in the puzzles and the clues given to solve themWill update review after completing book, happy to update to a 5 assuming errors like this are not a trend

This is going to keep us busy for awhile.

I purchased this as a gift and they seem to really enjoy it.

I consider myself both a language nerd and a puzzle lover. So, The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book is definitely in my wheelhouse. But others beware, some of these 100 puzzles are devilishly difficult. But all are fun! And most will teach you something whether you can solve the puzzle or not. For example, I now know Japanese is even harder to learn than I thought. However, writing Chinese characters is surprisingly easy (but only if I don’t care what they mean).If you love (a) learning new things or (b) doing puzzles, The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book is the perfect book for you. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars!Thanks to The Experiment and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is definitely for hardcore language nerds. Broadly organized by theme, there are dozens of very, very challenging word and language puzzles that will take quite a bit of mental brawn to figure out. This is perfect for puzzle lovers bored of pedestrian challenges and the usual brain-teasers.Answers are explained well at the end of the book. I might have preferred them to be at the end of each section instead of all grouped together, but this wasn't an insurmountable obstacle.Pick this up for someone who enjoys a real brain workout!Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review!

These puzzles did everything a puzzle book should do ! Teach a bit , take you into the past , explore your brains unused chambers . It led me to other areas connected with some research I have been doing- well worth it