Word Searches and More

The Original Mammoth Book of Word Games is an ideal choice for anyone who loves to decipher, ponder, or play with words. Puzzlemeister Richard Manchester offers alfabits, word mazes, threezies, cryptograms, jumpies, picture quizzes, crosswords, and countless variations.

This edition of The Amazing Illustrated Word Game Memory Books (The AIWGMB, Vol. 2, Set 1) introduces readers to the first seven of 21 five-letter-stems that are an essential part of Mentafile TM, on-the-way, word-game strategy as described in Volume 1, Sets 1 and 2 of The AIWGMB. Amusing, emotionally charged, coded short-stories, illustrations and flash cards of the five-letter-stems that complement the Central Seven and Auxiliary Seven six-letter-stems of Volume 1, act to greatly expand one's photographic-memory and flash-card recall of key seven and eight-letter game-words, i.e., those especially useful in SCRABBLE®, JUMBLE®, WORD TOWER, etc. Readers are also invited to play A Game Within the Game where they test their ability to quickly create short stories and sketches from computer-generated, accurately defined, word lists. One never knows where the words will lead, and the five-letter-stems, with their frequently long lists of esoteric, little-used words, can take one's mind to some exceedingly bizarre, surprisingly memorable places. For example, when one adds a second A and another letter to the five-letter-stem REAST, official game-word programs will assign the following interesting list of seven-letter words: ABATERS (reducers of intense occurrences), ABREAST (side by side), CARATES (tropical skin disease), GASTREA (primitive microbe), TEARGAS (tearing gas), KARATES (martial arts), AEROSAT (air-control satellite), ERRATAS (typing errors). To play A Game Within the Game, one uses all of the defined seven-letter words and the game's universal iconic code for the letter "A" (men's ties, ties into something, or ties someone up). When the reader has made their story emotionally charged, used as few extraneous words as possible, and made a rough sketch to illustrate their story, they compare results with the author's for a surprising, fun way to reinforce one's photographic recall. See, for example, page 291.

What's a five-letter word for stimulating? Mensa. If you like wordplay to challenge your mind, this is the book for you. Test your linguistic prowess with 71 mind-boggling conundrums, each small enough to finish at one sitting yet sufficiently provocative to provide hours of puzzle-solving fun. Find the Missing Links by using each of 15 letters once, to create an interlocking set of common words. Uncover hidden items and the category they comprise by taking one letter from each of six columns in Cross-O. Word Spiral uses each space twice, clockwise and counterclockwise, as do Boomerangs, where every answer is a six-letter word that starts and ends at the same number. These and the other puzzles included here are guaranteed to engross, engage, enthrall, and enchant you for many months to come. And, in case you discover your IQ falls just short of genius, answers are provided.

Are you ready for the ultimate challenge? Giant Grab A Pencil Book of Word Games has over 400 pages filled with hours of mental exercise and puzzle entertainment. With pages and pages of laddergrams, kriss krosses, mazes, anacrostics, logic problems, figgerits, bowl-a-score-challenges, cryptoquizzes, word arithmetic, star solves, cross sums, spellathons, and just about any other type of word game you can think of. This collection from puzzle-guru Richard Manchester is sure to set your mind racing.

"Word Master" offers endless hours of fun - guaranteed. The box includes everything you need to start playing straight away, with a specially designed game board, letter tiles, letter dice and book of rules. The instructions are easy to follow, and the book features lists of anagrams for words of 2 to 10 letters, for your reference - vital to help you lay a word when you just can't see how to use your letters. Simply throw the dice, collect the letter tiles indicated, and see what words you can make that connect with those already on the board. With scoring possible on several levels, you'll soon discover that strategy is all-important.

And the word is...challenging! These clever word games will really make your brain work overtime to come up with the solutions. Each one has a little twist, something unusual to keep crossword and other puzzle lovers on their toes. Around and Abouts will get heads spinning and searching for the letters that fit in a circular grid; "around" answers go counterclockwise, while the "about" clues overlap them in a clockwise fashion. Work it out from Tops to Bottoms, where two letters fit into every square; Crushword also crunches several letters--sometimes more than four--into each grid. Answers to Weavers clues form a continuous chain, with the first letter fitting into a central starred space; the next four go into adjoining numbered spots. The rest shuttle back and forth across and around the diagram. Plus: Quadrants, Crazy Eights, Catching Some Z's, Siamese Twins, Honeycombs, and other great puzzlers!