Here are eight new lateral thinking puzzles -- play along with us as we try to untangle some perplexing situations using yes-or-no questions.

Intro:

In 1940, the Venezuelan post office was said to deliver love letters at half price.

In 1890 Mark Twain composed a holiday message for the New York World.

The sources for this week's puzzles are below. In a few places we've included links to further information -- these contain spoilers, so don't click until you've listened to the episode:

Puzzle #1 is from Agnes Rogers' 1953 book How Come? A Book of Riddles, sent to us by listener Jon Jerome.

Puzzle #2 is from listener Cheryl Jensen, who sent this link.

Puzzle #3 is from listener Neil de Carteret and his cat Nala.

Puzzle #4 is from listener Ananth Viswanathan.

Puzzle #5 is from Dan Lewis' Now I Know e-newsletter. Here are two links.

Puzzle #6 is from Greg. Here's a link.

Puzzle #7 is from Sharon. Here are two links.

Puzzle #8 is from Greg. Here's a link.

You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss.

Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website.

Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode.

If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!