The Complete Picture Puzzle Box Set

Forget Sudoku. And up yours, too, Kakuro. I was never in honors math, so if I want puzzles, I want something that doesn't remind me of falling asleep in Algebra II. Like, for instance, the rising-in-popularity "spot the difference" photo puzzles from Life magazine. Now here's a craze I could get into. Just in time for the holidays, the magazine has packaged its trio of best-sellers into THE COMPLETE PICTURE PUZZLE BOX SET. Housed in a cardboard box are 450 brainteasers of Photoshop-enabled trickery, spread out over the interchangeably titled PICTURE PUZZLE, THE ORIGINAL PICTURE PUZZLE and THE ULTIMATE PICTURE PUZZLE. The picture puzzles are kind of like the old "how many differences can you spot?" drawings you were exposed to growing up, in the pages of Highlights and such ... only much cooler and much harder. Two full-color photos – each eye-catching on their own, as befitting of something with the Life brand – sit side by side on a page or a spread, and you have to find what varies between the two. Sometimes the changes are obvious, sometimes they're sneakily subtle. The books are divided up amongst four sections – novice, master, expert, genius – with each puzzle telling you how many differences there are, and about how much time it should take you. An easy one might ask you to find six in under three minutes; a tough one might ask you to find 20 in 20. (On one of the genius-level ones, it took me two minutes just to spot one change, in a photo that supposedly has nearly two dozen of them. The great thing about these PICTURE PUZZLE books are their wide appeal – kids and adults can enjoy them, and do. After I opened the box, various volumes kept disappearing mysteriously, only to be found upstairs in my 10-year-old son's room. I can't complain; at least it beats Playstation 2. –Rod Lott Buy it at Amazon.