I am preparing to take the Putnam next year. Currently I own the book in the title, but the material might be a little too difficult for me. I have gone through the first eight examples in the first section; I tried to solve each one but couldn't, and it also took me a long time to understand the solution once I read it.
Is there a book that is slightly easier than Engel's? I thought of looking at books for highschool competitions, but I don't think learning to solve those types of problems is very useful; many of them seem to rely much more heavily on memorized tricks (such as special factorizations and algebraic manipulations).
I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks