Alan Connor

Could you survive the castle? Find out if you’re a Traitor or a Faithful with this official personality test for fans of the BBC phenomenon. Across twelve immersive chapters – mirroring twelve days in the castle – readers are challenged with psychological tests, strategic scenarios and logic puzzles designed to reveal how they really think, act and behave under pressure. Blending expert behavioural insight with the addictive gameplay fans know and love, the book explores the traits behind the show’s most memorable players. Now step inside the castle and put yourself to the ultimate test.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY LEE CHILD For Jack Reacher fans who love a brain-teasing challenge, enjoy your hero vanquishing bad guys in the form of sudokus, word wheels, word searches and Murdle-style reasoning puzzles. Puzzle solving has never been so bloody. You don't need to have read Jack Reacher novels to know how to play. You just need to adopt Reacher's cool, calm, matter-of-fact approach to solve the puzzles. You’ll be listening to blues following up on clues to save the day. Created by Alan Connor, puzzle setter for hit TV shows Ludwig, The Traitors, House of Games and Only Connect, every page is a delight. The puzzles suit those who like to work alone in a diner with a bottomless cup of coffee as much as those who like to work in a group, sharing their knowledge to reach a solution. Remember, be on your feet and be ready. If in doubt, drink coffee.

Test your wits with the ultimate game of cunning, logic and intuition'This book is brilliant' Zoe Ball, BBC Radio 2*It's time to start your adventure. Get them before they get you*Put your sleuthing skills to the test in a world of deception, betrayal, and strategy. Placed in a castle in the Scottish Highlands, you must figure out if your fellow players are Faithful or a Traitor. Can you trust Jorge, the dentist with an encyclopaedic memory and tendency to smile at everyone? Or Nina, the retiree who acts like the group's matriarch but has a knowing glint in her eyes..? Beware, for in this treacherous game, trust is a luxury you cannot afford.In the official book of the BAFTA-winning phenomenon, The Traitors: The Interactive Game Book, the decisions you make will decide what happens next. Take this thrilling journey on your own or with others, pooling your wisdom to make the right choices. With over 20 standalone games to play in a group - all with cunning Traitors twists - this is the perfect gift, guaranteed to unleash hours of mischief and fun.*Praise for The Traitors TV show*'Addictively fiendish, this treachery was the best thing on TV in 20 years' Daily Mail'By far and away the most compelling and engrossing reality show of 2022, if not all time' Rolling Stone'One of the hottest realities right now, The Traitors is an absolute phenomenon you can enjoy also in a book format. Now, this is not a normal book' Digital Spy

‘Alan knows everything, knows everyone, and writes beautifully too.’RICHARD OSMAN‘The man with the contents of the Oxford English Dictionary stored just above his left eyebrow … and he’s quite funny too.’RORY CELLAN-JONES'A gorgeous, funny tour of the British Isles as seen from the clouds.’KONNIE HUQFor fans of THE ETYMOLOGICON and VERY BRITISH PROBLEMS, a delightfully damp tour of the British Isles. Mizzle. Dreich. Raining knives and forks. A real mugga-fisty. A spot of plother...We Brits love talking about the weather. So much so that our islands have hundreds of words and phrases for rain, some self-explanatory and others that really leave us scratching our heads. From a light smirr in Aberdeen to a "it's raining knives and forks!" in the Brecon Beacons, each type of rain tells a story about the people and places it falls on.In this delightfully damp tour of the British Isles, writer and puddle-splasher Alan Connor digs deep into the meaning and quirky histories of over one hundred words for precipitation. He gets caught in a plash in Northumberland, crashes a fox's wedding in Devon and ponders the phenomenon of Brits-who-picnic-in-the-car, in this charming and witty celebration of our very British obsession.

Test your wits with the ultimate game of cunning, logic and intuition'This book is brilliant' Zoe Ball, BBC Radio 2'The book is so much fun and is a literal page turner. If you like the tv show, you’ll love this! Honestly!' Brian Davidson, Season 2 contestant on The Traitors*It's time to start your adventure. Get them before they get you*Put your sleuthing skills to the test in a world of deception, betrayal, and strategy. Placed in a castle in the Scottish Highlands, you must figure out if your fellow players are Faithful or a Traitor. Can you trust Jorge, the dentist with an encyclopaedic memory and tendency to smile at everyone? Or Nina, the retiree who acts like the group's matriarch but has a knowing glint in her eyes..? Beware, for in this treacherous game, trust is a luxury you cannot afford.In the official book of the BAFTA-winning phenomenon, The Traitors: The Interactive Game Book, the decisions you make will decide what happens next. Take this thrilling journey on your own or with others, pooling your wisdom to make the right choices. With over 20 standalone games to play in a group - all with cunning Traitors twists - this is the perfect gift, guaranteed to unleash hours of mischief and fun.*Praise for The Traitors TV show*'Addictively fiendish, this treachery was the best thing on TV in 20 years' Daily Mail'By far and away the most compelling and engrossing reality show of 2022, if not all time' Rolling Stone'One of the hottest realities right now, The Traitors is an absolute phenomenon you can enjoy also in a book format. Now, this is not a normal book' Digital Spy*Cover received may vary from the picture

Which star of The Crown is the great-granddaughter of a British prime minister?Which TV quiz show is based on the creator's experience of being interrogated as a prisoner of war?Which property on the Monopoly board does not exist in the real-life London?For lovers of the most obscure and unlikely facts - as well as the unsung quizzing geniuses out there (we all know a couple) - comes Pointless Facts for Curious Minds, the book where obvious answers mean nothing and obscurity reigns. A compendium of fascinating and arcane bits of knowledge, mixed amongst a healthy dose of Pointless quizzing, this is a book that takes a quiz as only the starting point of your intelligent adventures.Pointless Facts for Curious Minds gives you the chance to put your knowledge to the test and prove your Pointless credentials.

Do you know which Cluedo character was killed off in 2016? How about which band has a species of shrimp named after it? Reckon you could guess the name of a song from lyrics where the words have been replaced with synonyms?Then fingers on buzzers, because House of Games is back and it's better than ever!Packed with 104 new, classic and fiendishly difficult rounds from the hit BBC show's question writers, House of Games: Question Smash is the ultimate collection of brainteasers, puzzles and trivia. Pit your wits against friends and family with favourites like Highbrow Lowbrow, Rhyme Time and Don't State the Obvious, as well as brand new games from the brilliant minds behind the show. So limber up your frontal lobes, brush up on your trivia and get ready to return to the House of Games.

Attention all Shipping Forecast fans. Set sail on a voyage unlike any other...Each day, millions tune in to hear the Shipping Forecast's unique cadence and poetry, words thatturn our island landscape into something strangeand magical. It's almost like a puzzle to be solved...The Shipping Forecast Puzzle Book tests your general knowledge and lateral thinking through a series of fiendish puzzles, in which all the answers can be found on a map as place names on the coasts or in the seas. For example:· An eagle's under this· What a Komodo Dragon really is· Near where someone was horribly cruel to 343 felinesAnd because your voyages trace the shapes of letters of the alphabet, that's just the beginning...With a foreword by Zeb Soanes, the voice of the Shipping Forecast, and fully illustrated with specially commissioned maps, The Shipping Forecast Puzzle Book will help make you a Master of the quizzing world.

Do you know how many post boxes there are in the UK? Could you guess how many times the word 'goat' appear in the King James Version of the bible? Fancy playing a game of charades where all of the books, films and plays are entirely made up? Now, look around the room. Is anyone there the kind of person who’ll say ‘I just don’t understand this’, when faced with something that’s not just perfectly easy to understand, but is ... well, fun?Ask them to leave. Have they gone? Good. Now welcome inside the House of Games ... Featuring questions based on some of the most loved rounds from the hit BBC2 show, including Roonerspisims, Venn Will I Be Famous?, Dim Sums and Answer Smash, Richard Osman’s House of Games Quiz Book is the ultimate test of wit, wisdom and imagination.Curated by Richard Osman and Alan Connor and featuring over 50 new and exclusive games to try out, this is your chance to step inside the House of Games and pitch your trivia skills against your family and friends. Quirky, unique and exactly the right amount of silly, House of Games contains hours of guaranteed fun!

In the century since its birth, the crossword has evolved into the world's most popular intellectual pastime: a unique form of wordplay, the codes and conventions of which are open to anyone masochistic enough to get addicted. In Two Girls, One on Each Knee, Alan Connor celebrates the wit, ingenuity and frustration of setting and solving puzzles. From the beaches of D-Day to the imaginary worlds of three-dimensional crosswords, to the British school teachers and journalists who turned the form into the fiendish sport it is today, encompassing the most challenging clues, particular tricks, the world's greatest setters and famous solvers, PG Wodehouse and the torturers of the Spanish Inquisition, this is an ingenious book for lovers of this very particular form of wordplay.