5 Unusual Puzzle Books That Will Eat Your Brain

MAZE, by Christopher Manson
When MAZE was published in 1985, Manson offered a prize for the first reader to come up with the correct solution to the puzzle it creates; no one ever officially won, though it has been since solved. It’s arranged akin to a “choose your own adventure” book; each spread features a lavish woodcut illustration depicting one room in the titular maze alongside the text. The story is simple: a group of people enter the maze, and a mysterious guide describes their efforts to figure out what’s going on in acerbic and often hilarious ways. The puzzle: find the shortest path from Room 1 to Room 45 and back, use the clues along that route to formulate a riddle, then answer the riddle. The sheer amount of detail and lack of guidance provided combine to create an eerie sense of immersion—every room is bursting with mystery, inviting you to spend days and days studying and researching every object, seeking clues.

Gödel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Hofstadter’s classic isn’t a discrete puzzle, in the sense of working toward a single solution; rather, it’s a twisting, turning narrative that morphs into a variety of puzzles, thought experiments, and riddles at every branch. Using the way rules define experience and how communication actually functions as a starting point, Hofstadter takes you on a breathtaking intellectual ride through music, math, and visual art. Along the way he pauses to dawdle over clever wordplay, acrostics, and codes. On top of that, a long list of actual riddles and puzzles are melded seamlessly with the narrative. You can read the book all the way through or jump about, it doesn’t matter—not only will the puzzles confound you, but the concepts discussed will alter how you perceive the universe around you.

The Clock Without a Face, by Gus Twintig
The “treasure hunt” puzzle book had a brief moment in the 1980s and 1990s, and leave it to McSweeney’s to explore the pleasures of an old meme. The Clock Without a Face tells the story of a “cursed” clock whose numbers, bejeweled with valuable emeralds, were “stolen” by thieves and buried—literally (this is McSweeney’s, remember—in secret locations around the country. Clues to the locations of each treasure hoard can be deciphered from the text and pictures; within a month, eight of the 12 had actually been found, and all eventually were dug up. Ostensibly a book for kids, its puzzles are actually quite challenging, and solving them usually required the concerted effort of many adults working together on the Internet. One solution didn’t reveal an emerald, but rather a whole secondary puzzle that had to be solved—which took an additional year and a half. Even if you can’t find the real treasure any more, you can still get lost in this intricate puzzle world, peppered with a bizarre sense of humor.

Mysterious Stranger, by David Blaine
Everyone knows Blaine for his mind-blowing street magic, but in 2002 he published a book—a combination memoir, magic tutorial, and treasure hunt. You can read it just to hear Blaine’s story. You can read it to learn a little about magic, including detailed lessons for simple tricks. You can also scour it for the clues to the intricate puzzle Blaine has devised, originally pointing to the location of a $100,000 prize. Said loot was found about two years after publication, which should give you an idea of how challenging the puzzle really is. Blaine’s writing manages to weave the clues into the text in ways that reward multiple read-throughs; it will take over your life for a while if you try to solve it, even without the prize money on the line.

To Mock a Mockingbird, by Raymond Smullyan
This one isn’t for the faint of heart. It deals with some pretty hefty puzzles involving combinatory logic and other abstract mathematical concepts, wrapped up in a lengthy narrative about two men walking through a forest filled with birds. Each bird has a distinct call, and when one bird hears another’s call, it responds with its own. At the center of the forest is the Mockingbird, imitating all the other birds’ calls and thus sparking waves of bird calls in specific patterns. Is there a puzzle in there? There is, but the book will also challenge you to think differently about how you think. You may not “get” it all the first time through, but part of the fun is the challenge of seeing past the story to the concept underneath.