Lateral Logician

by Paul Sloane, Des MacHale, Edward J. Harshman

These complicated conundrums provide an amazing brain workout. To solve a lateral-thinking problem you have to throw out assumptions, think out of the box, and look at the clues from a new perspective. It's all a matter of training the brain to think more creatively. Here's an example of one tricky little mystery: A foreign visitor to London wanted to ride up the escalator at the subway station, but did not do so. Why? Could you guess the reason is that he saw a sign saying Dogs must be carried--and he didn't have a dog! At first, you may think you don't have all the information needed to arrive at the answers, but persist and you'll find the answers to them all.

272 pages, Hardcover

First published July 5, 2004

About the author

Paul Sloane read Engineering at Trinity Hall Cambridge. He came top of Sales School at IBM, became MD of Ashton-Tate UK, VP International for MathSoft and CEO of Monactive. He now writes, speaks and gives workshops on lateral thinking in business, creativity, innovation and leadership. He is married and lives in Camberley in Surrey. He has three grown-up daughters. He is a keen chess and tennis player and he plays keyboards in a rock band, the Fat Cats. He has written a series of lateral thinking puzzle books, many co-authored with Des MacHale, published by Sterling Publishing. They have sold over 2 million copies and been translated into many languages. He has also written two management books, published by Kogan Page, and many articles for blogs and websites. He manages the Lateral Puzzles Forum where puzzlers can set and solve lateral puzzles.

Reviews

[Erikka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not great, not bad. Very dated and some of the puzzles were clearly “hey, I learned this cool fact and wanted to share it with you”, as there was no way you’d get even marginally close to the answer. Also, some had other workable answers. We did enjoy the logical thinking though, so it’s worth a quick read.

[Fyodor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought the puzzles were fun, then again I ate glue when I was younger.