Surgery Recovery Activity Book

Two weeks on the couch is longer than it sounds. This book fills them with 110 puzzles in three parts: easy ones for the first days, harder ones for when you're bored.

It is for an adult resting at home for weeks after an operation, and for the daughter, sister or friend who gives it. Its purpose is to fill the long days on the couch one puzzle at a time, with something to do on a tired day and something harder when the time drags. You work one puzzle to a page, with a pencil, and its answer page is printed at the foot. It makes a get-well gift to bring before the operation or in the first days home. Nothing in it jokes about the operation, and nothing in it is made for children.

What's inside:

• 110 puzzles of six kinds. 33 word searches, 21 sudoku, 20 cryptograms, 13 logic grids, 12 word scrambles and 11 word pairs, mixed so that two of the same kind never come one after the other.
• Three parts, graded by a written rule. Part One, Puzzles 1-30: 11 by 11 word grids with words across and down, Easy sudoku, cryptograms with three letters given, logic grids with four friends and two lists. Part Two, Puzzles 31-75: 13 by 13 grids, Medium sudoku, two letters given, five friends. Part Three, Puzzles 76-110: grids of 15 and 16 letters across, Hard sudoku, cryptograms with one letter given or none, logic grids with three lists. You can start in any part.
• How to Play pages for every kind. At the front, the rules of all six kinds, so any page can be your first.
• Every answer included, and easy to find. Under each puzzle, "Answer p. N" gives the page of its answer. The answers are at the back in puzzle order, and each logic grid answer shows the way there one step at a time.
• Sudoku with bold boxes. The nine 3 by 3 boxes are outlined with a thick line, and the level is printed on the page.
• Checked by a program. A computer program built and checked every grid, cipher and logic puzzle: every word of a word search is in its grid exactly once, each sudoku has one solution and can be solved without guessing, each logic grid has one solution, and no cryptogram letter stands for itself.
• A theme on every page, named in its title: Post Office, Movie Night, Castles and Knights, Savanna, Magic Show and 105 more.
• Something to share. A logic grid works well with a visitor, one of you reading the clues out loud.
• 8.5 x 11 inch pages, white paper, one puzzle to a page, in paperback.

What it is not. It is not a medical book and gives no medical advice; follow your care team's instructions. It has no crosswords and no trivia. Part Three asks for real time: its Hard sudoku and three-list logic grids are not quick.

Keep a pencil by the couch and open it at whatever part fits the day.