Puzzles come in so many forms these days that puzzlers are absolutely spoiled with choices. There are video games, apps, mechanical puzzles, brain teasers, single- and multi-player puzzle games, subscription services, and puzzles by mail, just for starters.

But sometimes, it’s nice to go back to the simple pleasures of solving while putting pencil (or pen) to paper.

So today, let’s talk about some of the best puzzle books available today for a solver looking to kick back and solve some paper puzzles.

Naturally, let’s start with crosswords. Many top constructors have put out puzzle books with varying degrees of difficulty, and you can pick up most of them for great prices in spots like Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Maybe we’re talking something smaller and more accessible, like Matt Gaffney’s Fast & Fun Mini Crosswords, or something with a little more challenge, like Andrew Ries’s Maverick Crosswords. You could start your crossword culinary menu off with the food-themed puzzles of Erik Agard’s Food for Thought Crosswords, or enjoy the unthemed puzzles in Todd McClary’s Fresh Freestyle Crosswords as a palate cleanser.

Whether we’re talking about the well-constructed crosswords of David Steinberg’s Juicy Crosswords from the Orange County Register or the challenging puzzles offered by Peter Gordon’s Wickedly Hard Fireball Crosswords, there’s a puzzle book for every skill level, no matter how familiar or unfamiliar you are with crosswords.

Oh, and for a variation on the theme, you can try Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Octopus Crosswords (where the 8×8 grids allow words to spell out in any of 8 possible directions).

Maybe you enjoy clued puzzles but the criss-crossing of a standard crossword grid isn’t your forte. If that’s the case, crostics (or acrostics) might be more your taste. These clued puzzles reveal quotations, bits of information, or anecdotes of all sorts. And all of the letters in the quote/bonus answer can also be found in the answers to that puzzle’s list of clues.

This allows for some fun back-and-forth solving between the clues and the quotation, in case you get stumped in one spot or the other.

Friend of the blog Cynthia Morris has a fleet of acrostic puzzle books available, with American Acrostics Volume 6: Puzzling American Culture and American Acrostics Volume 7: Puzzling Explorers and Adventurers being among the most recent releases.

Then again, maybe you want to leave clued puzzles behind altogether and simply go hunting for words concealed in a grid. For the word seek/word search fans, a good theme to anchor a puzzle is the key to an enjoyable solving experience.

For the bookworms out there, you can check out Shawn Marie Simmons’s 25 Word Search Puzzles for Classic Literature Lovers. With word lists tailored to different iconic works of literature, you can revisit your favorite reads as you go searching each grid for a bevy of fun and familiar words. (And she has more volumes coming soon!)

Of course, we’ve only just scratched the surface of puzzle books that are available. But whether it’s one of the volumes we’ve mentioned today, the numerous magazines published by our friends at Penny/Dell Puzzles, or something bigger and more ambitious, you can never go wrong with a good puzzle book.

Can you think of any terrific puzzle books we missed? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!