Books about Brain bending from Amazon.com

Frame games, as seen in USA WEEKEND magazine and read by more than 48,000,000 people in 600 newspapers weekly, are an extremely popular and amusing form of word puzzle that represent a famous phrase, song, person, place, or movie. By looking at the way the letters are formed and where they are placed in relation to the other letters, you can piece together a solution. These artfully constructed brainteasers are a favorite among teachers, travelers, and puzzle-lovers alike. Terry Stickels has authored eleven similar collections in the past, and has had bestsellers with Scholastic (over 70,000 sold), Pomegranate, and St. Martin's Press.

Brainiacs on the prowl for challenging fun will find everything they're looking for in these cunning conundrums. Puzzle master Terry Stickels has created a mind-melting collection filled with hundreds of diverse and fiendishly tricky problems--including wordplay, math, analytic reasoning, logic, visual dilemmas, and code breaking. Figure out the next number in a series, find hidden phrases, and determine what a three-dimensional object would look like from two-dimensional drawings. Every puzzle provides a workout that strengthens mental muscles. And while these brainteasers do require concentration, they don't demand any special training or high-level math skills. A little practice, patience, and imagination are all it takes.

How many hundreds of times have you seen the top row of letters on a typewriter? Figure out the only 10-letter word that can be created from those letters (See answer #1 below.) Next, try a simple number puzzle: What is 10 percent of 90 percent of 80 percent? (See answer #2.) Or combine letters and numbers with this puzzle: Do this quickly: Write down twelve thousand twelve hundred twenty-two. (See #3.) You'll also want to try Frame Games, that use arrangements of words and numbers to create a thought, along with the puzzles that ask you to count lots of triangles inside a larger one, and many other types of visual-letter-number mind-benders.

Answers:
1. TYPEWRITER.
2. 7.2%
3. 13,222

Sharpen your mind and blitz your brain with a workout of more than 500 challenging puzzles. These tricky numeric and alphabetic questions will stimulate your smarts as never before, and help your IQ climb higher and higher. And the puzzles are fun too, because some of them involve unfolded cubes, aliens, watches, and matchsticks. Rev up that logic, steady that concentration, and get going on 20 levels of ascending difficulty. Assess your progress in the art of problem solving, and gather your wits at every stage. Which letter is the odd one out in a pattern? What shape continues a sequence? Which of five cubes can be made from a template? Test your lateral thinking abilities, try out mathematical teasers, play letter and word games, figure out visual and spatial problems, solve riddles, and above all...watch out for the unexpected. Hours of entertainment lie ahead.

More than 500 conundrums, mind-benders, and mathematical teasers will help puzzle fans push their IQ levels to the maximum. Visualize this collection as a ladder into the stratosphere of intelligence: 20 levels of ascending difficulty each contain a variety of numerical and alphabetical questions that tease and stimulate the brain. Start from the beginning, with Level One, and work methodically through to the end. Think logically, rationally, and laterally when unraveling these, and watch for emerging patterns that make solving the later problems easier. Resist the temptation to look at the answers (all at the end), and when you're stumped, try to look at the puzzle from a different perspective--that's how to sharpen the wits and train the mind.