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About The Complete Book Of Solitaire
Product Description Everyone has played basic Solitaire at one time or another, but there is a world of Solitaire enthusiasts who play every variation of the game. In compiling this authoritative Solitaire collection of 179 variations, Pierre Crépeau took joyful inspiration from his grandmother, a noted Solitaire aficionado. The Complete Book of Solitaire is structured according to the object of each game and grouped accordingly: tableau-clearing, pile games, combination games, and building by suit, color or sequence. Each game is illustrated in color and is introduced by the author with either a personal anecdote or useful background information. Players will find many of these games highly clever, constantly changing and evolving with a host of wonderful surprises or devilish traps awaiting. Learning the Solitaire variations is greatly facilitated by the book's numerous illustrations. Winning at Solitaire does not depend on luck alone, it takes a good memory and some strategic thinking. Here is an ideal way to exercise the mind in mathematics and the art of precision while learning the benefits of perseverance, honesty and, of course, patience. About the Author Pierre Crépeau is an anthropologist specializing in representational systems, the arts, and popular traditions. Author of several books and a feature writer, he retired in 1991. He plays Solitaire whenever he can. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction Grandmother and Her Playing Cards My grandmother was one of those women who would terrify you at first sight, but then you'd adore her. Her bearing, patrician and aloof, invited respect and deference. She stood ramrod straight like a caryatid and yet glided fluidly about like a gently moving stream. Her face -- smooth, unlined, handsomely tanned -- radiated upper-class hauteur. But behind her dreamy eyes and raspy voice -- the result of years of smoking -- lurked a fragile soul. There was a deep wound somewhere inside. I'll never know whether it was some personal tragedy or betrayal, for my grandmother was hardly one to confide in others. For her, acknowledging one's private pain in public was unacceptable, and she jealously guarded hers behind a veil of imagined diffidence. But the long, sleepless nights she endured spoke volumes about her inner turmoil. Growing up, I never saw Grandmother sleep. Every evening, as we were getting ready for bed, she would stay by herself at the long kitchen table and absentmindedly shuffle her cards. In the morning, I'd find her in the same place, sitting in front of her cards, as though she'd hardly moved all night. Intrigued by her "mania" -- a word used by other members of the family to describe her behavior -- I approached Grandmother one evening and quietly asked her why she always played cards alone. Instead of a direct answer, she taught me Clairvoyance, a children's game that involved predicting the color of the cards about to be turned up. It was love at first sight for both of us. Seeing my determination to beat the odds, Grandmother knew at once that I it took to be a persistent player. At last, she had found an avid student. Soon the two of us played together almost daily. Grandmother taught me as many games as I could fathom and let me practice them with her, correcting my mistakes as they occurred and tapping on my fingers gently each time I attempted an "illegal" move. One day she allowed me into her room. There, she lifted a little cedar box from a drawer, ceremoniously opened it and fished out an old deck of cards that were dog-eared and discolored. Yet, Grandmother held up the cards as if they were holy relics on display before an assembly of believers. She had inherited the cards from her own grandmother, she said, and had been preserving them as if they were sacred. The Origin of Playing Cards "Who invented playing cards?" I once asked her, and she treated me to a story. Hundreds of years ago in Chin
