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Monday 22 June 2020

The Curious History of the Riddle by Marcel Danesi

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Quarto Publishing Group – Wellfleet Press in exchange for an honest review.

What a fantastic walkthrough of riddling history! I have been a lifelong fan of riddles. The Riddler from Batman is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time, and when I was a child I had a book about dragons which had a whole section dedicated to riddles. I couldn't have been more excited when I saw this book available to request, although I was a little skeptical it had anything to offer a devout riddle fan. I couldn't have been more wrong!

This book is split up into sections, loosely arranged in chronological order and walking the reader through the oldest riddles all the way to modern day more jokey ones. I found all of the sections well-written and very informative. There are riddles within each section and then a set of riddles to solve yourself after each section, with the answers at the back. In general, these were fun but they did vary in difficulty greatly. I appreciate it's hard to control for that sort of thing but the riddles from the first two chapters were near impossible, whilst later ones verged on too easy. Sometimes the hints were too direct as well which is why I can't give this book a full 5 stars. However, the informative sections were great. I particularly enjoyed the literary riddles chapter, and the section dedicated to the Riddler (which was a fantastic surprise).

Overall, this book was insightful and easy to read. I loved learning more about riddles and their place in history, and I had fun trying to solve the riddles throughout. This book would make a fantastic present and it's the perfect kind of read to dip in and out of. I highly recommend it to all fans of riddles.

Overall Rating:
.5

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