Sunday, September 06, 2009

A Logic Puzzle

Beird Waker, the celebrated poet, finally won a Booker for his thirteenth anthology of poems. In the post event party, you are in the circle surrounding the poet when Miss Gee, another guest, asks him innocently, “Do you actually remember the order in which your books were published?” This one liner sends the poet into a monologue:

“Aah, let’s see.. I got the Booker for "Figments", which, as you know, is my thirteenth book.. but the first was a book called "Candy Floss", which, if I may say so, appears rather puerile when I read it now.. "Bubbles" was right after "Silence", but way before "Kingdom" . "Horsecarts" was after "Durian" but before "Kingdom" again. "Echo" and "Reverberations" were next to each other. "Mindreading" came just after "Reverberations" and just before "Glenfiddich", but even Glenfiddich was before "Kingdom" for sure.

"Oppression" was my bestseller, but sadly it wasn’t the first book. I wish it was, it came a close second, but by then the market already had a perception about me.

"Elephant Song" and "Echo" had 2 books between them. "Silence" and "Elephant Song" had as many books between them as did "Bubbles" and "Durian". But, "Bubbles" was definitely published before "Elephant Song".”

Can you help the much bewildered Miss Gee with the correct order of the books?

8 comments:

Z said...

Tricky... I make it, in order 1-13

Candy Floss
Opression
Silence
Bubbles
Elephant Song
Durian
Horsecarts
Echo
Reverberations
Mindreading
Glenfiddich
Kingdom
Figments

Z said...

Oppression, of course. Shall we call it a typo instead of a misspelling? ;-)

Sagarone said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sagarone said...

Good puzzle. My solution is the same as Z.

Ratzzz said...

1.Candy Floss
2.Oppression
3.Silence
4.Bubbles
5.Elephant Song
6.Durian
7.Horsecarts
8.Echo
9.Reverberations
10.Mindreading
11.Glenfiddich
12.Kingdom
13.Figments

duh.. i spent 2 min solving it and came here shouting i did it i did it.. shud have popped in earlier to ctrl c + v Z's answer :P

D said...

I refused to be trapped into a CAT-type question when I've escaped the CAT itself all these years! :)

Oreen said...

not even ATTEMPTING THIS!!!

who captured the monologue? or was it a figment of your imagination?

How do we know said...

Hi Z: I knew that you'll be among the first to crack it! :-)

HI Sagarone: Thanks.. am glad u liked solving it.

Hi The Rat: Arrey.. u got to that solution urself na.. thats great!

Hi D: CAT Type.. naheeeeeee!!!

Hi Oreen: The whole thing is a product of my imagination.. :-)