If, like me, you spend a good portion of every day cursing Will Shortz and the NYT puzzles for being just that much harder than you can handle, you'll enjoy this book. It's a pretty amusing look at crossword obsessives, and the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
However, like most people who really love something, the author has no idea how snobby he sounds talking about some of these topics. He goes on at length (three times) about crossword people being more honest than normal folk, smarter than normal folk, and (possibly) more evolved than normal folk. A lot of the novel is his "struggle" at the ACPT, where he ranks in the low 100's (out of the top 500 in the country), and whines that it takes him nearly thirty minutes to finish a Sunday crossword under pressure. Maybe a book about crosswords, written by a man who can complete the Friday puzzle in under fifteen minutes and a Sunday in under twenty-four, isn't particularly welcoming to those of us who struggle to finish a Wednesday at all. (What the hell kind of word is "Kapok"?) His advice boils down to "You have this kind of a mind or you don't. Also, practice."
I can't help thinking that the book would be a lot more interesting -- and accessible -- if it was written by an outsider, and featured more about the insiders. There are a few really interesting interviews with Shortz (who edits the NYT puzzle and created his own college major in cruciverbalism) and Brendan Emmet Quigley, literally the rock star of the puzzle-creating world.
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