Approaches mathematics using an assortment of puzzles and problems and the metaphorical structure of a maze.

A collection of twenty-nine mazes which, together, lead the reader to Wizardry castle, where the Grand Wizard of Wigglewand's power medallion is being held by the evil Wrinklewit.

Enter the magical maze of mathematics and explore the surprising passageways of a fantastical world where logic and imagination converge. For mathematics is a maze—a maze in your head—a maze of ideas, a maze of logic. And that maze in your mind is a powerful tool for understanding an even bigger maze—the one of cause and effect that we call "the universe." That is its special kind of magic. Real magic. Strange magic. Infinitely fascinating magic. Acclaimed author Ian Stewart leads you swiftly and humorously through the junctions, byways, and secret passages of the magical maze to reveal its beauty, surprise, and power. Along the way, he reveals the infinite possibilities that arise from what he calls "the two-way trade between the natural world and the human mind." If you’ve always loved mathematics, you will find endless delights in the twists and turns of The Magical Maze. If you’ve always hated mathematics, a trip through this marvelous book will do much to change your mind.

In this activity book children enter the secret worlds of fairies, gnomes, and elves as they explore colorful paths that twist and turn through dense forests and underground kingdoms.

With his characteristic talent for finding the connections between writing and the stuff of our lives (most notably in his earlier hit Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer), Peter Turchi ventures into new, and even more surprising, territory. In A Muse and a Maze, Turchi draws out the similarities between writing and puzzle-making and its flip side, puzzle-solving. He teases out how mystery lies at the heart of all storytelling. And he uncovers the magic—the creation of credible illusion—that writers share with the likes of Houdini and master magicians. In Turchi’s associative narrative, we learn about the history of puzzles, their obsessive quality, and that Benjamin Franklin was a devotee of an ancient precursor of sudoku called Magic Squares. Applying this rich backdrop to the requirements of writing, Turchi reveals as much about the human psyche as he does about the literary imagination and the creative process. With the goal of giving writers new ways to think about their work and readers new ways to consider the books they encounter, A Muse and a Maze suggests ways in which every piece of writing is a kind of puzzle. The work argues that literary writing is defined, at least in part, by its embrace of mystery; offers tangrams as a model for the presentation of complex characters; compares a writer’s relationship to his or her narrator to magicians and wizards; offers the maze and the labyrinth as alternatives to the more common notion of the narrative line; and concludes with a discussion of how readers and writers, like puzzle solvers, not only tolerate but find pleasure in difficulty. While always balancing erudition with accessibility, Turchi examines the work of writers as various as A. A. Milne, Dashiell Hammett, Truman Capote, Anton Chekhov, Alison Bechdel, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Antonya Nelson, Vladimir Nabokov, Charles D’Ambrosio, Michael Ondaatje, Alice Munro, Thomas Bernhard, and Mark Twain, elaborating and illuminating ways in which their works expand and deliver on the title’s double entendre, A Muse and a Maze. With 100 images that range from movie stills from Citizen Kane and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to examples of sudokus, crosswords, and other puzzles; from Norman Rockwell’s famous triple self-portrait to artwork by Charles Richie; and from historical arcana to today’s latest magic, A Muse and a Maze offers prose exposition, images, text quotations, and every available form of wisdom, leading the reader step-by-step through passages from stories and novels to demonstrate, with remarkable clarity, how writers evolve their eventual creations.

Wind your way through a maze or a labyrinth: two symbolic journeys, both rooted in myth and mystery. But while labyrinths are flat, circulate pathways designed for the acquisition of inner peace, mazes feature patterns of barriers that challenge, confuse, and deceive the walker. After looking at the legends and evolution of these two kinds of complex, twisting paths, Jeff Saward considers the innovative ways today's land artists and garden designers have recreated labyrinths and the new "craze" for mazes-from maize mazes and mirror mazes to wood and water mazes and simple garden turf mazes. The diverse and stunning examples come from all around the world, and this breathtakingly photographed overview captures their visual excitement and unique inspiration.

Thirty entertaining, challenging mazes: 3-D constructions, directional arrows, designated stops, and more. From easy "No Brainers" to "Full Brain Overload," which might take hours to solve. Includes "hints section."