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The Puzzler: One Man's Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, From Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life by A.J. Jacobs

Lissy H.’s Review for the 510 Club | February 2026

 

Cover of "The Puzzler" by A. J. Jacobs. The book a pale cyan colour, featuring a cube shown in isometric perspective. The top face of the cube is a crossword puzzle, the left side face is orange with interlocking jigsaw puzzle piece outlines, and the right side face looks like the blue face of a solved Rubik's cube. A tiny cartoon man holding a pencil stands on top of the cube.

I chose to read The Puzzler based on it referring to "the most sadistic jigsaw." Each chapter has puzzles to solve with solutions at the end of the book. The accompanying website also has some of the puzzles to download, and The Puzzler Hunt contains 27 original puzzles, unlockable with a passphrase from the introduction (do not worry you get more than 641 decillion guesses).

 

In The Puzzler, Jacobs covers not only the history of puzzles but also experiences his own journey that goes beyond puzzles to making connections with the cross spectrum of puzzle creating and solving humans. As Jacobs says on p. 24, “puzzles are a way of bonding with other humans” and that is not only about the puzzles but the people you meet and connect with. I would have to agree, based on a recent personal example when I met my nephew’s girlfriend and we instantly connected over jigsaw puzzles. This was also because I was not capable of going three weeks without doing a jigsaw puzzle after rediscovering them in 2025.

The most relevant section for recreational maths fans is probably Chapter 8 of the book, titled Math and Logic Puzzles. For this, Jacobs read a dozen related books and consulted with Tanya Khovanova, a world expert on maths puzzles. While I am definitely no maths expert, I was able to answer the question on p. 111, which actually to me seemed more about not making assumptions. The chapter also includes the puzzle related origin of the phrase “thinking outside the box” and nine math and logic puzzles from history to solve.

 

My main takeaway was the equation of thoughts of Maki Kaji (who Jacobs refers to as the late godfather of Sudoku) in response to the question posited by Jacobs on p.21 “What is a puzzle?” Kaji expressed the answer as ? → ! which Jacobs references twice, on p. 21 and on p. 248. Kaji said puzzles are a journey and the key is to embrace the arrow which represents the journey and not to worry about endings and perfection. I think this is great advice as I know as a big picture thinker and overthinker that I often think about everything from beginning to end even when the ending has not happened yet. If I can carry one thought with me for 2026 and beyond it will be to not “be obsessed with endings and perfection”.

 

 

WHAT IS THE 510 CLUB?

The 510 Club is named after the Dewey Decimal classification for Mathematics. It is a book recommendation project facilitated by Mathateca in collaboration with Christchurch MathsJam. Each month we feature a mathematical book recommendation, whether that’s a novel, articles / essays, a puzzle book, textbook, biography... just as long as it features maths in some way. Read the above book at your leisure then feel free to comment your thoughts below, or come along to the following Christchurch MathsJam sessions to join in an informal maths/book chat with the reviewer.

We're always looking for suggestions! If you're interested in contributing a book rec one month, please email christchurch@mathsjam.com to sign up.