Puzzle Magazines!

[Spot's Meow]

I really love puzzle books/magazines. I work on one whenever I get the chance. Lately I have been working exclusively with Variety Puzzles books.

This is because about two or three years ago I told my mom I wanted a subscription to a puzzle magazine for Christmas. Well, instead she did something even better and cheaper - did one of those deals where you buy a huge amount of magazines off their backlog for a discounted price. It was great! I got to open boxes and boxes of puzzle magazines. I have more than a hundred stowed away in my closet. I'm set for quite a few years!

I also used to have a subscription to a magazine that was just Fill-ins. I have many of those built up as well.

So is anyone else here as obsessed with these as I am? If so, what are your favorite puzzles?

I prefer Fill-ins and Logic puzzles. Pretty much any word puzzles I love. I always try to complete every puzzle in the book before starting a new book, even if I have to look up some of the answers (which is of course a last resort).

I've always wished I was better at the puzzles that have clues you have to find words for. I have always been terrible at crossword puzzle type ones. The more you play the better you get, because you pick up on words that they use often, but I still really suck at it. I think that it is because of my age (I am 23). A lot of the clues are things that I have never even heard of or were way before my time. I look forward to the day when I can complete a crossword puzzle with no help!

Please, share your puzzle book stories, at least to make me look less nerdy.

P.S. I love you PennyPress!

 

[judge alba]

do the sudoko sp? quite a bit though normally do the ones in the paper also do the crosswords when i get bored though i do try get as many swear words in as possible

 

[the 4th hanson bro]

My 7 year old son loves the Puzzlemania books. His 4 year old brother has started to pick them up as well - he's really good at the mazes.

 

[trampledamage]

My 7 year old son loves the Puzzlemania books. His 4 year old brother has started to pick them up as well - he's really good at the mazes.

Are these books available in the newsagents? I'm going crazy trying to find maze puzzles for little miss trampledamage.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

When I was young, we used to go through those puzzle books to keep us occupied on long train jouneys to London. As well as being the best form of entertainment in the immediate pre-GameBoy era, it also served to distract us from British Rail's attempts to numb our minds with their monotonous train vibes.


I jest of course. I loved puzzle books. The logic grid puzzles and Codeword were my favourites back in the pre-Sudoku era, although as a child I remember hating crosswords.

 

[the 4th hanson bro]

My 7 year old son loves the Puzzlemania books. His 4 year old brother has started to pick them up as well - he's really good at the mazes.

Are these books available in the newsagents? I'm going crazy trying to find maze puzzles for little miss trampledamage.

I don't know. We've subscribed to them. Highlights publishes them.

 

[trampledamage]

Thanks - I'll investigate.

 

[thestrangequark]

I'm a puzzle addict, though I usually do the puzzles in the paper. I love crosswords and sudoku -- I've always been a fan of deductive logic puzzles. I remember in 5th grade my teacher had us do one such puzzle, and I enjoyed it so much that she began printing them out for me throughout the rest of the year. What a nerd I was even then!

I like to do the crosswords in AM New York and Metro, because they're quick and satisfying -- and free. Though sometimes they can be a little too easy, and there's not much creativity as far as the clues go; there was one that was clever, "Nickle, but not dime," and the answer was element. I do the NY Times too, on occasion.

I like bestcrosswords.com, too.

 

[RJDiogenes]

No cheating!

Across

1. "I've been waiting so long."
3. "Both sides were against me since the day I was born."
4. "Put up your dukes."
6. "But it's a morning in May."
9. "He walks in quiet solitude."
10. I'm praying to the aliens."
11. "That book by Nabokov."
12. "You've got a hub cap diamond star halo."
16. "It's just imagination may lack."
17. "Honey, keep the oven warm."
18. "Superman or Green Lantern ain't got nothing on me."
20. "I lead a life of crime."
23. "I closed my eyes and she slipped away."
25. "The night weighs heavy on his guilty mind."
26. "If it gets me nowhere, I'll go there proud."
28. "It took me years to write."
30. "I could note foresee this thing happening to you."
31. "Come up off your color chart-- I know where you're coming from."
32. "A built-in remedy for Krushchev and Kennedy."
33. "I'm the same boy I used to be."
35. "Make the queen of the angels sigh."
36. "Down where Lexington cross 42nd Street."

Down

1. "The second hand unwinds."
2. "Those are the memories that make me a wealthy soul."
3. "Over on the corner, there's a happy noise."
4. "Up popped a sea lion ready to go."
5. "He built a fire on Main Street and shot it fulla holes."
7. "We let so many dreams just slip through our hands."
8. "And now you find yourself in 82."
13. "It was a blue letter she wrote to me."
14. "I'll stick with you, baby, for a thousand years."
15. "The great relief of having you to talk to."
19. "I have been around the world."
21. "It's your money or your life."
22. "The lights all went out in Massachusetts."
24. "You should have known by the look in my eyes."
26. "Walking through forests of palm tree apartments."
27. "There's something in the air besides the atmosphere."
29. "The Cuervo Gold... the fine Columbian...."
34. "The beards have all grown longer overnight."

 

[Luckyflux]

Puzzle book guy right here. My favs are Places Please and Letterboxes. I like the shadows and the similar pictures ones also. Whenever I get a new Penny Press or Dell Variety book I go straight to those. Oh and Cross Sums too!

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

I love Crossword Puzzles mainly because I am really good at them. It sounds dorky, but one of the proudest moments in my life was when i realized that I could always complete the Friday NY Times puzzle. I also like the Quote-Acrostic puzzles. I do find that the more you work at any type of puzzle the easier it becomes because your mind just becomes conditioned to think along those ways. A lot of what makes doing the puzzles easy now is I just now the kinds of clues and answers Crossword puzzles deal in. On the other hand I am really bad at the European style Crosswords.

 

[Jadzia]

I don't enjoy puzzle magazines no. Because I don't really get a sense of achievement with things that are throwaway.

 

[Ruaidhri]

The Toronto Star prints an American crossword in their Saturday edition called the Premier. I love this crossword, and wish I could find a collection of them. Challenging without being impossible.

And the only reason I ever buy the Star.

 

[Niorah]

I have a permanent subscription to Italy's most famous and oldest Puzzle magazine, it's published every week and it's called "La Settimana Enigmistica".

I love crossword puzzles, especially the completely empty ones that you have to fill yourself, and those where the definitions are given randomly and you have to figure out where everything goes. Please bear with me, I obviously don't know their proper name in English.

 

[Capn Flukie]

A little bit outdated, and 9 Down is wrong.

ACROSS

1 Fearless Leader
5 ____ Flukie
6 An exploding redshirt
7 Proud like a God
8 Doubleoh____
10 The stuff of life
11 To stir up trouble
13 Hostile Posting
14 Possibly the worst episode of Star Trek
16 A naked Mod
22 The best Starship name ever
24 Looks for coffee in nebulae
26 Highest Rank
28 Creator of the weekly reports
30 You're Outta Here!
34 Mr. Pointy Ears
39 Creator of the Trek Tonight 'toons
40 Etcetera
43 Lowest Rank
45 One who polices the forum
46 What TBonz is
48 Sister site for Trek News
49 Likes to make it so
50 The ads
51 Nickname for Premium Members
52 A moderator in Misc
53 Current Administrator

DOWN

1 Individual topics in a Forum
2 Leader of the Rolleyes Party
3 What TBonz drinks
4 Don't get too many of these
5 Owner of the board
9 Future board software
12 He Who Shall Not Be Named
15 The 'first' captain
17 What Spider drinks
18 The best singer of all time
19 This function used to make the board crash
20 A drunk Mod
21 Spaceman ____
23 Starfish
25 An Enterprise Mod
27 Topmost Forum
29 Coding Fairy
31 A small picture
32 Od0 ____
33 Makes the best avatars
35 Robot Monkey lover
36 Current Highest-Ranked poster
37 Jake's dad
38 Place of discussion
41 The show that started it all
42 Not the kind that shoots cannonballs
44 "Serious" Debate
47 A place to hang out with other posters of your rank
49 What Posters do

 

[the 4th hanson bro]

^ technically so is 5 across.

 

[Capn Flukie]

It's still an answer.

 

[the 4th hanson bro]

But how many people know the answer?

 

[Capn Flukie]

That's why it's a puzzle. I know one poster here that wants me to change it back.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Warning for 51 Across. Comments to PM.


That's pretty cool. I'm gonna save it.