Over twenty-five years ago, Nikoli, a Japanese puzzle and game company, started publishing a curious logic puzzle called Sudoku. The result was magical and in recent years, Sudoku has spread from Japan to other countries. These newer puzzles, however, are often computer-generated and lack the simple beauty of handmade puzzles. Nikoli continues to nurture and develop Sudoku with handmade puzzles that contain the vital ingredient that make puzzles enjoyable--the sense of communication between solver and author. The best Sudoku make you concentrate, but aren't stressful.
Arranged from "Easy" to "Very Hard," here are over 300 logic puzzles that celebrate the compulsive joy of Sudoku with symmetry, smartness, and elegance. Absorbing and engaging, every puzzle is designed by an author who anticipates your next step and obscures the path, while never leading you into frustration. Each puzzle carries the careful thought of a master who knows when to encourage and when to withhold, who shares the joy of that moment when one hard-won number is captured and the entire puzzle falls into place.

Over twenty years ago Nikoli, the Japanese puzzle and game company, started publishing a curious logic puzzle called Sudoku. The rest of the world recently joined the Sudoku craze by using computer programs to create puzzles, but Nikoli is the only company that still crafts their puzzles the old-fashioned way: by hand. As "Ad Age" wrote in a profile, the Nikoli credo is "The Best Puzzles Are Made by Happy Employees." And for solvers, it really does make a difference--there's an elegance and symmetry to the puzzles, plus a sense of interaction. The puzzle-maker knows just when to encourage, and when to withhold. Puzzles marked "Easy," are easy because the puzzler leads you through. Those marked "Very Hard" are exactly that--they pit your mind against the mind of the master, who seems to share the joy of that moment when one hard-won number is captured, and the entire puzzle tumbles into place.
An obsessive's collection, "More Original Sudoku" features over 300 puzzles, all in a chunky, easy-to-carry format (it even fits into a standard jeans-size back pocket). An introduction shows how to solve the puzzles at various levels of difficulty, and it includes a tutorial on how to create your own hand-made Sudoku.
Here's wishing you "Gokouun o inorimasu!" (Good luck!)

The Sudoku craze continues! And now, players are ready for a real challenge. Ready to take it up a notch? "EXPERT SUDOKU" features over 300 challenging puzzles created by hand by Nikoli, the Japanese company that originated Sudoku. A step up from beginner puzzles, but not quite as tough as those in "X-Treme Sudoku", think of this as brown-belt Sudoku. As Tim Preston, publishing director of Puzzler Media, Britain's biggest seller of crossword and cryptogram puzzles, has said, 'It is a matter of great pride to get your puzzle into one of Nikoli's magazines. Handmade puzzles are much better...It gives you the satisfaction that you are pitting your wits against an individual who has thought about what your next step would be and has tried to obscure the path.'

"The Best Puzzles Are Made by Happy Employees." So "Ad Age" describes the credo of Nikoli, the Japanese puzzle company that invented the Sudoku craze and supplies 100% of the puzzles published in Japanese newspapers and magazines. And when they say "made," they mean literally handmade--unlike the computer-generated puzzles found in other American Sudoku products.
And that's one of the features that makes THE ORIGINAL SUDOKU BOOK 2-- and THE ORIGINAL SUDOKU, published between seasons and already with 115,000 copies in print--unique. The books celebrate the compulsive joy of Sudoku with symmetry, smartness, and elegance. They invite you to match wits with the experts, to step into the 81-cell arena with a puzzle maker who has fiendishly anticipated your next step. Fun without frustration.
Other features? More all-new puzzles--over 300, arranged from "Easy" to "Very Hard." The same chunky, easy-to-tote format, because once addicted you will be toting it around everywhere. An informative introduction that shows you how to approach and solve the puzzles. Plus an entirely new idea--an unprecedented tutorial on how to create your very own handmade Sudoku puzzles.
The obsession continues.

Extra tricky. Extra tough. It's the sudoku collection that's not for the faint of heart. If you're craving the challenge, sharpen your pencil and pit your wits against the Japanese puzzle-makers at the top of their game. In each of these more than 300 handcrafted puzzles, ranked by difficulty from expert to x-treme to ultimate, every move is an adventure, a one-on-one challenge with a grandmaster who delights in elegance, symmetry, and building in the occasional roadblock. But keep going. You'll solve it eventually... you genius! Can't get enough? Look for: The Original Sudoku The Original Sudoku Book 2 More Original Sudoku X-treme Sudoku Expert Sudoku The Original Sudoku Page-a-Day Calendar

The next step, like having a whole book of just Saturday "Times" crossword puzzles. Even more fiendish, even more fun, "X-treme Sudoku" proudly presents 320 puzzles rated "Difficult" to "Very Difficult." These are the toughest, knottiest, most demanding Sudoku out there--prepare to have your brain cells crackle, your pencils melt, your mind obsessed with numbers and squares.
No one is better than Nikoli at rounding up such a collection. A Japanese puzzle and game company that started the Sudoku craze over twenty years ago, Nikoli is known for creating the only handcrafted puzzles around. As Tim Preston, publishing director of Puzzler Media, Britain's biggest seller of crossword and cryptogram puzzles, has said: "It is a matter of great pride to get your puzzle into one of Nikoli's magazines. Handmade puzzles are much better. . . . It gives you the satisfaction that you are pitting your wits against an individual who has thought about what your next step would be and has tried to obscure the path."
For "X-treme Sudoku," the puzzle-makers at Nikoli went out of their way to obscure the path. There are puzzles with entire boxes empty. Puzzles with whole rows left blank. Puzzles that form mysteriously beautiful symmetries, but demand a calculating logic to solve.
For the X-treme solver, paradise.

Readers of all ages can create gorgeous illustrations in these new puzzles that combine logic and mindfulness.