A novel approach: The Weekly Puzzle by Dilip D’Souza

Adjacent to each other on the bookshelf in front of me are four favourite books

Adjacent to each other on the bookshelf in front of me are four favourite books. Looking at them, it strikes me suddenly that their titles have one word, two words, three words and four words (not necessarily in that order). They were published in 2002, 1934, 1990 and 2008 (not necessarily in that order).

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Can you sift through the following clues and answer the three questions below? (While you’re at it, you may want to sift through the questions too.)

* The book with one word in its title sits immediately to the left of the autobiography.

* The journalist’s book has a three-word title.

* The oldest book is adjacent to the memoir.

* Neither the second book from the left nor the autobiography was written by the poet.

* Among the Thugs was published in 1990.

* The leftmost book is I, Claudius.

* The second book from the right was published in 2002.

* Neither the athlete’s book nor the book with a one-word title is about football.

* The poet wrote the celebrated historical novel.

* The rightmost book is not the autobiography.

Questions:

* How many words in the filmmaker’s book title?

* When was the memoir published?

* Who wrote the autobiography?

Scroll down for the answers.

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Answers:

* There is one word in the title of the filmmaker’s book.

* The memoir was published in 2008.

* The autobiography was written by the athlete.

The books:

* Ammi by Saeed Mirza

* I, Claudius by Robert Graves

* Among the Thugs by Bill Buford

* You Cannot Be Serious by John McEnroe (with James Kaplan)