Welcome to a brief respite from our usual sci-fi and fantasy fare! Today, I’m reviewing The Puzzler by A.J. Jacobs, a man obsessed with finding the world’s best puzzles, digging into their history, and attempting to solve them. I imagine the Venn diagram of SFF readers and puzzle lovers probably has at least a few of you fine people in it, so let’s dive in and see what clicks into place within Jacobs’ book.
Jacobs takes us on a journey in The Puzzler, chronicling his experience with all sorts of riddles, conundrums, physical puzzles, and more. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific type of puzzle. There’s one for crosswords, another for anagrams, a Rubik’s cube section, sudoku/KenKen, and plenty of others. The chapters are a mix of Jacobs’ personal anecdotes surrounding said puzzles and chats with experts. He then finishes most chapters with an appendix containing types of that puzzle from history. Finally, the book concludes with an exclusive puzzle hunt combining puzzly types from throughout the book into a massive meta-game.
If that sounds like fun to you, I have good news: you’ll like this book! If it sounds like your worst nightmare, I have also-good news: you should stay away! The Puzzler is exactly what it sets out to be. Just look at the subtitle: One Man’s Quest To Solve The Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, From Crosswords To Jigsaws To The Meaning Of Life. The book mostly hits the mark with that wordy name.
My favorite parts of The Puzzler were the fact-based portions and interviews with experts. Jacobs does an excellent job of summarizing each puzzle’s history and translating the interviews with top solvers into layman’s terms. Some of these sections could’ve used more detail. Often, Jacobs dedicates one to three pages to these elements, leaving the rest for his own quirky stories.
Those quirky anecdotes are supremely hit or miss. One stand-out featured Jacobs and his family signing up as Team USA in what is essentially the jigsaw puzzle Olympics. Most teams finished all four puzzles before he and his family finished one. He takes it in stride and shares the story with humor and a fond nostalgia. Other anecdotes don’t work nearly as well. A paragraph-long explanation of Jacobs’ late-night-early-morning struggles with the New York Times spelling bee falls flat, even when he tries to spice it up with self-deprecating jokes. I’m not mad about any of these lesser mini-stories, but they were my least favorite elements, especially when they felt forced, as though Jacobs wanted to fill space with an anecdote just because every chapter had one.
Along those lines, Jacobs has a lot of political analogies and jokes in here. I’m far from one of those “I don’t want politics in my [insert preferred media here]” folks, and I certainly don’t mind the occasional quip. But Jacobs shoehorns political humor into the book with an off-putting inconsistency. Never mind that I generally agree with his politics; the jokes, like some anecdotes, feel like they’re wedged in between paragraphs with a crowbar. It made me wonder at times if the book would age well, but I discarded that notion. Jacobs sets the book firmly in the 2020s with references to the pandemic, politics, and other timely events. It makes it feel like a document of our time and how puzzles helped him (and others) stay happy during trying times.
Let’s venture back to that subtitle, though. Specifically, the “meaning of life” section. Jacobs dances around a thesis in The Puzzler: puzzles can make us better people. He outright says something similar a few times, and he peppers in tiny references to it throughout. When he lays that out in the intro, it feels like an interesting thread to pull. The problem is, he pulls too many other threads as the book goes on, and I closed the back cover wondering why that ethos withered away. Most of Jacobs’ explorations of the idea that puzzles can contribute meaningfully to humanity are surface-level. The experts he interviews will ruminate briefly on it, saying things like “humans love problem-solving. They like it when there’s a solution.” Expanding on such ideas seems out of the question. When the book purported to tackle this topic, I hoped for something deeper. Instead, I was left to puzzle out the conclusions on my own.
Despite its missteps, The Puzzler remains an interesting read for anyone who likes a good challenge. Jacobs includes all sorts of fun examples, ranging in difficulty from “I, Cole, solved this, hooray!” to “the seventh layer of hell.” Although some of the messages are muddled and the humor is wishy-washy, Jacobs’ clear adoration for his subject matter shines through. That alone makes The Puzzler worth a read.
Rating: The Puzzler: 7.5/10
-Cole
