The questions typically ask for an English word or words. The word answers given are the best solutions we can find in either the British Chambers dictionary or the American Webster's Third
International dictionary. The anagrams often involve famous people, places or incidents.
You can work through the book on your own but you might enjoy it even more if you play it as a quiz or game with a group of smart people who think they know a lot about words!
There are over 300 new puzzles which will delight word lovers, puzzle fans and curious minds. There are palindromes, anagrams, letter combinations and a vast assortment of word puzzles. These are challenging if you like solving tricky questions but the book is also fun to dip into in order to learn about remarkable words in the English language. Here are some sample puzzles:
- What is the longest word containing just one vowel used once?
- What is the longest word which forms another word when spelt backwards?
- What boy's name has two anagrams which are also boys' names? (6 letters)
- Can you think of two words which start with HE and end with HE?
- What word contains five successive vowels?
- Name a vegetable whose name contains each vowel once and only once.
- What word is the largest number expressed in Roman numerals which is also a word?
a first class
degree in Engineering from Cambridge University. He came top of Sales
School at IBM. He went on to become a Marketing Director, Managing
Director and CEO of software companies. He and Des McHale have
co-authored over 20 books of lateral thinking puzzles which have sold
over 2 million copies in total. Paul's most popular business book is
The Leader's Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills.
He runs leadership master
classes with top corporations around the world. He has been a visiting
lecturer at Cambridge University, Lancaster University, Henley Business
School and the Mumbai Institute of Technology. His Tedx talk is available
on Youtube. It is entitled Are you Open-Minded?
He lives with his
wife Ann, in Camberley England. They have three daughters and six
grandchildren.
B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Mathematical Science from
University College Galway and a Ph.D. degree in Algebra from the
University of Keele in the UK. He is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics
at University College Cork, where he taught for forty years. He is author
of over sixty published books on such diverse topics as
Lateral Thinking Puzzles (with Paul Sloane), Wit, Jokes, Puzzles,
George Boole, John Ford's movie The Quiet Man, and giving up smoking.
Among his interests are Geology (in which he has a diploma), photography,
broadcasting, book collecting, recreational mathematics, humour,
family history, and puzzles of all kinds. He and his long-suffering
wife Anne have five wonderful children and three even more wonderful
grandchildren and live in Cork.
