Christopher Manson

Great art, great puzzles, multiple levels of difficulty. This is a landmark puzzle book that succeeds on so many levels. You can enjoy it as a ten-year-old, you can try to wring the last bit of truth out of it as a 40-year-old. I'm not sure if is ever fully solved or solvable--because the puzzles themself are actually art, and art can't be solved.

The book itself is lovely and wonderful to look through; I can spend hours on the illustrations. The maze is a joy to follow, but the solution is rather a let down.

I'm terrible at open-ended puzzles because I never get any sense of whether I'm moving in the right direction. The solution to a good puzzle makes you go, "A-ha! Of course!" After two hours with 'Maze', I never had that feeling. I still made what seemed like arbitrary, any-choice-works decisions.

Isaac is asked to deliver an elephant to Charlemagne. The story is about their adventures and growing friendship. After each hardship is overcome, Isaac comes to appreciate another part of the elephant. The comments at the end note that this is based on a true story about Isaac the Jew, a translator for Charlemagne.