6 Jigsaw Puzzles We Love | Wirecutter

Nov 07, 2024

Updated November 4, 2024

We’ve added Edward Gorey's Book Covers, a 1,000-piece puzzle by Pomegranate, as a new pick.

James Austin

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Puzzles can be a relaxing and meditative way to spend an afternoon—especially a drizzly or snowy one. When I was younger I didn’t really understand this, preferring to spend my time with more interactive or social games and activities. But over the past few years, when I didn’t have as many options to socialize with friends and found myself tired of staring at a screen, I became more open to the quiet, intense focus that solving a puzzle can bring. Conversations with puzzle-loving co-workers have only deepened this appreciation, so I’ve collected a number of their recommendations here.

When puzzlers focus their attention on a new puzzle, they can see new details and develop a deeper appreciation of the artwork they’re reconstructing. Puzzles can be a focal point for a group to gather and share some time together, or they can be a soothing balm for a solo mind, encouraging the solver to transform disjointed chaos into pleasant order.

Still, not every picture makes a great puzzle. Preferences vary, but senior staff writer and avid puzzler Tim Heffernan recommends designs with bold blocks of color that contain moderate levels of detail. Senior staff writer Kimber Streams, meanwhile, generally gravitates to images they find aesthetically pleasing, leaning more on personal taste to figure out which puzzles might be worth tackling.

My colleagues also pointed out that difficulty is way less about piece count than what’s on the pieces. Intricate patterns can overwhelm your eyes (especially during extended puzzling sessions), samey shapes can be hard to place, and soft, hazy watercolors increase difficulty, since they lend few clues as to which piece goes where. These might be welcome challenges for seasoned puzzlers, but for beginners it can be maddening.

If—like me—you’re more of a jigsaw junior than a power puzzler, the following puzzles provide a balanced challenge, making them great options to begin piecing together your collection.

Edward Gorey’s Book Covers (1,000 pieces; about $25 at the time of publication)

In early August, next to boxes of cereal and jars of chocolate in the staff kitchen of Wirecutter’s office, I set out a puzzle made up of Edward Gorey’s whimsical book covers (one of nine Gorey-themed puzzles that Pomegranate offers). In part, this was to welcome fall, but really it was to build excitement around my favorite time of year—spooky season.

Gorey’s art is stunning and strange, and it’s just chaotic enough to create a difficult puzzle. I looked forward to sipping my morning office matcha as I looked for bat edges, skeletal frames, and mournful faces. I loved seeing people take a break and chat with coworkers while trying to piece together a Gothic cathedral or macabre scenes during the mid-afternoon nosh hour. And I despaired when we completed it and had to move on to a non-Gorey puzzle.

—Ana Paola Wong

Crocodile Creek World Animals Puzzle + Poster (200 pieces; about $25 at the time of publication)Crocodile Creek Space Puzzle + Poster (200 pieces; about $25 at the time of publication)

Puzzling was a near-daily habit for my family at the start of the pandemic; nowadays, my husband, daughter, and I occasionally kick off a lazy weekend morning by redoing one of these map-style puzzles we got from Crocodile Creek, and they’re still as enjoyable as they were the first time. I’m a fan of the soothing, pleasing hues and the fact that the pieces have stood up to multiple uses (a fraying jigsaw piece can be so annoying). My grade-school-age daughter, meanwhile, likes to share what she’s been learning about things like planets and continents at school; any activity that can get a kid excited to discuss science and geography is an automatic parenting win.

—Rose Maura Lorre

Liberty Puzzles Garden at St. Adresse (452 pieces; $115 at the time of publication)

Liberty Puzzles are a fantastic way to upgrade your puzzle game. They’re expensive but worth every penny. Personally, I get bored with traditional puzzles. All the little squares have the same basic innies and outies; you have to focus on color to put the pieces together. But with Liberty Puzzles, you get to work with shape, too! The laser-cut wood pieces come in an astonishing variety of forms: bugs, sailboats, birds, people, fishing hooks, flowers, buildings, and more. Having such fun shapes is certainly less mind-numbing, and it makes the puzzling process a bit faster than with classic puzzle pieces.

—Stuart Faith

Cavallini & Co. Travel Vintage Puzzle (1,000 pieces; about $20 at the time of publication)

My partner and I both love vintage posters with bold colors and fun typography, and when I stumbled across this vintage travel poster puzzle from Cavallini & Co., I knew it was the perfect gift.

We have very different approaches to puzzles. He picks up a random piece that strikes his fancy, compares it with the guide, and tries to figure out exactly where that piece lives. While he does that, I sort all the pieces—first by type (edge or center), then by color—and methodically work my way through by sticking pieces together and seeing what happens. When I get stuck on a particular piece, I hand it to him.

With our complementary techniques, this puzzle took us about a week of short solving sessions to complete. The vivid colors, defined shapes, and abundant text make this puzzle moderately easy to assemble, but it still feels like a satisfying accomplishment thanks to its size. And contemplating trips around the world makes for great conversation while you work.

—Kimber Streams

Pomegranate Charley Harper: Monteverde 1000-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle ($20 at the time of publication)Pomegranate Charley Harper: Glacier Bay, Alaska 1000-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle ($19 at the time of publication)Pomegranate Charley Harper: Isle Royale 1000-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (about $20 at the time of publication)

My family has enjoyed Charley Harper jigsaw puzzles for years, doing them every summer and winter during family get-togethers. Harper was known for his geometric, deceptively detailed paintings of nature, a style he called minimal realism. And some of his best works—a series of posters he created for the National Park Service—are also among the best puzzles.

What makes Harper’s art so vibrant and inviting to the eye also makes it a perfect puzzling medium. At first glance, the images can seem repetitive, but upon closer look, each section of the piece is full of subtle variation. These differences make puzzle designs such as The Rocky Mountains an Easter-egg hunt for the eye. Even the challenging 1,000-piece puzzles my family likes end up being fun for kids; their quick eyes and innate curiosity make them puzzling naturals.

My personal favorite is the Isle Royale puzzle. It’s devilish, with its narrow scope of colors, high degree of symmetry, and background of hundreds of near-identical autumn leaves. It takes a while to finish, but the reward is spectacular.

—Tim Heffernan

When I was living in Tucson, Arizona, Harper’s The Coral Reef and The Sierra Range puzzles brought some of the nature I missed seeing elsewhere into my desert home. To me, they feel surprisingly easy for 1,000-piece puzzles due to the clean geometric shapes Harper uses, so although they occupy time, they’re not frustrating to assemble.

—Erin Price

Roxane Gay may not be great at puzzles, but she’s found some surprisingly good-looking ones to pass the time during quarantine.

Ravensburger New Neighbors (60 pieces; $12 at the time of publication)

When my daughter was in second and third grade she had a jigsaw puzzle phase, and we had a stack that included several Ravensburger puzzles from our local toy store. They have a wide range of vibrant designs featuring puppies, unicorns, farm animals—all the things she loved (and still loves). She hadn’t shown a ton of interest in puzzles before this age, but during the early days of the pandemic, they became an easy way to spend a few minutes in between virtual lessons. Tasks like flipping all the pieces face up, finding corner pieces, and sorting the pictures into groups kept her busy. The increased challenge of 100-piece, 300-piece, and even 750-piece puzzles held her attention as she got older, too.

This 60-piece farmyard scene was our favorite starter puzzle. We finished it in about a day, and she was so proud that she showed it off to everyone she could. The pieces are sturdy enough to take the puzzle apart and rebuild it a few times, and they feel great to hold while you’re working. The edges don’t fray, so the pieces make a satisfying snap when you lock them into the right spot in the puzzle.

—Jackie Reeve

Areaware Gradient Puzzle - 500 piece ($25 at the time of publication)

My family likes to do puzzles together at our cabin in northern Minnesota. Gradient puzzles like this are soothing if you are a “few pieces at a time” type of person. Anyone can sit down with this puzzle at the coffee table and sort pieces by color while killing some time. Once it’s done, my family displays the finished product under the coffee table’s glass topper like it’s a work of art. But it doesn’t stay there for long, because visitors see it and want to give it a shot.

—Signe Brewster

This article was edited by Ben Keough and Erica Ogg.

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