Do you want to improve your ability to think 'outside the box, give your creativity a bit of a boost and have fun too? Then 'Amazing "Aha!" Puzzles' by expert lateral puzzle designer Lloyd King could be the puzzle book for you!

Bill Bultas, puzzle writer and owner of Puzz.com, said of Lloyd and his latest book 'Amazing "Aha!" Puzzles': "An outstanding puzzle book - blows others away. Lloyd's lateral thinking puzzles first appealed to me when I worked through them in his Test Your Creative Thinking book by The Times/Kogan-Page. This book is even BETTER. 317 puzzles with absolutely wonderful illustrations. I fell in love with puzzles nearly 10 years ago, but my wife, a non-puzzler, is also enjoying this book."

(PRWEB) October 12, 2004 -- 'Amazing "Aha!" Puzzles' by Lloyd King. Over 300 original creative/lateral puzzles with illustrations. (ISBN 1-4116-1330-9, Trade paperback 179pp, 6 x 9, $18.50). You can buy this book and, also, see a free preview of it at www.lulu.com/ahapuzzles. It will also be available at Amazon.com, etc very soon.

"Aha!" puzzles are the ones with those frustratingly 'obvious answers. Yes, thats right. Those ones! When the answer, which is usually startling, hits you, you get a sudden flash of inspiration popularly known as an Aha!" and it feels very much as though youve been hit by a bolt of lightning. Its a wonderful, energising feeling and it is this, in part, that makes Aha!" puzzles so very rewarding and addictive.

Frequently the solution to an Aha!" puzzle pops into your head unexpectedly while you no longer appear to be consciously working on it. Surprisingly, this is the result of a complex parallel process that synthesizes the input from both of the brains hemispheres. These are the right hemisphere, which is the more imaginative and intuitive side, and the left hemisphere, which is the more logical and analytical side. The data is relayed between the hemispheres via the corpus callosum, a thick band of more than 200 million nerve fibres.

In many ways Aha!" puzzles are ideal for stimulating creativity because, by appearing impossible, implausible, bizarre or paradoxical in some way, they immediately arouse our curiosity. Also, because you know the answers are usually very simple (well, once you know them!), you feel you really ought to be able to get them. Its just a matter of when and how. These factors along with the prospect of an Aha!" and the often humorous nature of the answers awaken our childlike sense of playfulness, which is the key to unlocking our creativity. Another BIG plus is that no specialist or unusual mathematical knowledge is needed to solve them, making them much more accessible to everyone.

The puzzles in this book have been designed to be exciting and intriguing so that they really grab your attention. Because of this, they will hopefully stimulate your creativity and imagination, teach you to think 'outside the box, improve your ability to switch easily from one perspective to another, increase the fluency with which you generate ideas, develop your intuitive powers, make you better at finding unusual associations and patterns and, with any luck, even make you laugh a little too. All in all, they should provide your brain with a truly comprehensive and mind-altering lateral work-out.

As you make your way through the various mind-warping challenges, youll encounter all sorts of fun situations and enchanting characters like Windlestraw the wizard, Cinderspeller the witch and Captain Swishbuckle, the swashbuckling adventurer. To negotiate them successfully, you really will need to call upon every last drop of your imagination and creativity and be willing to abandon your existing assumptions so that you are ready for all kinds of tricks, twists, lateral leaps and downright skullduggery too!

The puzzles, which are divided into four categories according to their approximate level of difficulty, range from 'Easy Riders, which are the simplest, to 'Quantum Leapers, which will prove a challenge to even the most experienced of puzzle solvers.

Reviews of Lloyd's previous puzzle book 'Test Your Creative Thinking':

"PERHAPS THE BEST PUZZLE BOOK I HAVE EVER WORKED THROUGH and I have worked through dozens." - Bill Bultas, puzzle writer and owner of Puzz.com.

"WOW! REALLY FORCES THE READER TO THINK 'OUTSIDE THE BOX!' Lloyd King has created a fantastic book of puzzles that coax the reader to use lateral thinking and to break out of standard patterns of thought. This book is an incredible mind expander. The puzzles are original and hugely rewarding and will make a difference in the way you look at the world. The ultimate brain work out." - Cliff Pickover, prolific US author.

"PUZZLE ART. Go to any bookstore, take a puzzle book from the shelf, and browse through the pages. Of all the puzzles in the book you see in front of you, how many of them are derivatives of previously published material? The answer's simple - most of them. Blandness and repetition can be found on bookshelves in abundance. In contrast, Mr King's work is full of originality and this fact alone deserves celebration. He has done more than most to develop the closed lateral puzzle, the form where all necessary information is given. Their difficulty often lies in there being only a single clue, sometimes only in the title, and this is bound to stretch one's powers of perception and interpretation. If, as a result, the solution is beyond your reach, don't feel cheated or defeated. Just look in the back of the book and try to see it as a work of art - because quite a lot of it is." - Barry Clarke, Daily Telegraph puzzle columnist and puzzle book author.

"WONDERFULLY TRICKY. Lloyd King surely belongs to one of the great innovative puzzle designers of this time. His puzzles are so imaginative and unusually tricky, it is a joy to try them. When you fail to see the intended answer, you get an even greater thrill when his clever answers are revealed. This book will give you many hours of amusement, and is definitely a must have. I own all of Lloyd King's books, and I can't wait to get my hands on his next book." - Jan Merolant, Dutch puzzle writer and webmaster of Creative Puzzles.

"A simple way to exercise your mental muscles is to take a regular dose of creative problem solving, and this book is packed with puzzles and problems, often requiring a bit of lateral thinking to come to a solution. There are also two creative thinking tests to assess your level of creativity. This is the best source we've come across for such puzzles and should be on the shelf of anyone who wants to improve their personal creativity." - Author Brian Clegg of Creativity Unleashed.

"Succeed in giving your mind a good work-out...best of its kind". - Management Today.

"This book provides an ideal opportunity for anyone to assess and improve their creativity." - Business Plus.