Co-written by the cube's inventor, this book serves as a comprehensive guide to the Rubik's cube. It opens up a wealth of fascinating mathematics and offers a vast number of new ideas and possibilities to those who have solved the cube as well as to those who remain puzzled.

" ... brings together piercing analyses of the American presidency - dealing with both current issues and historical events. The compendia consists of the combined and rearranged issues of [the journal] "White House Studies" with the addition of a comprehensive subject index."--Preface.

"[The author, a] journalist and aspiring "speedcuber," attempts to break into the international phenomenon of speedsolving the Rubik's Cube ... while exploring the greater lessons that can be learned through solving it"--Amazon.com.

The second edition of William Phemister’s The American Piano Concerto Compendium reveals to professional and amateurs pianists alike a vast collection of available compositions by American composers. Analysis expands outside mainstream concerto styles to include those considered experimental or popular derivatives. The range of music flows from Pulitzer Prize winners like Samuel Barber, Gail Kubik, and John LaMontaine, to lesser-known multi-ethnic composers such as Tania León and Samuel Zyman, to old standards like Edward MacDowell and the first piano concerto written by an American-born composer, Otis B. Boise (1875), to the cutting-edge avant-garde of Milton Babbitt and Elliott Carter, just to name a few. These all contribute to the varied narrative that animates American piano music. With forty percent more works described, documented, and reviewed than were listed in the 1985 first edition from the College Music Society, this second edition is a valuable resource not only for pianists and conductors, but also for orchestras, teachers, students, music historians and critics, collectors, and concert attendees.

"Humans are the only animals who create and solve puzzles--for the sheer pleasure of it--and there is no obvious genetic reason why we would do this. Marcel Danesi explores the psychology of puzzles and puzzling, with scores of classic examples. His pioneering book is both entertaining and enlightening." --Will Shortz, Crossword Editor, The New York Times "... Puzzle fanatics will enjoy the many riddles, illusions, cryptograms and other mind-benders offered for analysis." --Psychology Today "... a bristlingly clear... always intriguing survey of the history and rationale of puzzles.... A] splendid study...." --Knight Ridder Newspapers

An Anthropology of Puzzles argues that the human brain is a "puzzling organ" which allows humans to literally solve their own problems of existence through puzzle format. Noting the presence of puzzles everywhere in everyday life, Marcel Danesi looks at puzzles in society since the dawn of history, showing how their presence has guided large sections of human history, from discoveries in mathematics to disquisitions in philosophy. Danesi examines the cognitive processes that are involved in puzzle making and solving, and connects them to the actual physical manifestations of classic puzzles. Building on a concept of puzzles as based on Jungian archetypes, such as the river crossing image, the path metaphor, and the journey, Danesi suggests this could be one way to understand the public fascination with puzzles. As well as drawing on underlying mental archetypes, the act of solving puzzles also provides an outlet to move beyond biological evolution, and Danesi shows that puzzles could be the product of the same basic neural mechanism that produces language and culture. Finally, Danesi explores how understanding puzzles can be a new way of understanding our human culture.

A vibrant visual celebration of the iconic cube. The Rubik’s® Cube was created in 1974 by Ernő Rubik, a Hungarian architecture professor. Rubik later used the Cube as a learning exercise to teach his students about three-dimensional spaces. Little did he know his ‘magic cube’ (as he originally named it) would become one of the most famous puzzles of all time! By the 1980s, the Rubik’s Cube was a worldwide craze, selling millions every year and cementing its pop culture legacy. It has featured in everything from The Simpsons to Harry Styles' last tour. Perfect for all fans of the Cube, this book is a vibrant celebration of the iconic puzzle. It explores 50 key moments in the Cube's life, encompassing everything from its design evolution to celebrity solvers and cube-solving records. With great quotes, fascinating stats and facts, fun photos and plenty of nostalgia it is a perfect gift for the Rubik's fan in your life and offers plenty of new insight for seasoned solvers. Includes a foreword by Ernő Rubik.