Lots of books to talk about today! I’m currently spending three months in a tiny town with no cellphone service (but plenty of WiFi, thank god) — so I won’t be reviewing my nonfiction crossword books, which are still in New York. Suffice it to say that Matt Gaffney’s Gridlock is an absolute must-read.
So back to the puzzle books. Let’s start with one that doesn’t really fit into the “constructor” category…
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A lot of my recent Amazon shopping has been through their “Marketplace” used-book dealers. The price is right (usually pennies for the book plus $3.99 for shipping) and, with limited exceptions, the books have arrived in good shape and without any of the puzzles already solved. I’ve been able to pick up some out-of-print titles that way, and saved a few bucks on books that are on the shelves at Barnes & Noble.
My latest order from “Hippo Books” arrived yesterday. In the package was:
So today I’ll run down the hardest books in my library (excluding the two above, which are pretty self-explanatory, and I haven’t looked at them anway). And when you think “hard puzzles”, whose name comes to mind? Frank Longo.
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Hello, dear readers. I’m back with some more thoughts on the wonderful world of published crosswords. Since my last post I’ve picked up another 15 or 20 puzzle books, and I hope to review my entire library before I go out of town for the summer. And then I’ll come up with something else to blog about. Soon, I’ll get to the many top constructors who have books of their excellent puzzles; today, several random topics.
First of all, in my debut post I meant to acknowledge the Holiday Shopping Guide put together by Rex and Orange last year. It was a great help when I was starting my ongoing shopping spree.
Speaking of Orange: if anyone reading this does not own her book, what are you waiting for?
[Ryan here. Want to give a warm welcome to Dan Feyer, winner of the C division at the last ACPT. He'll be contributing puzzle book reviews to our site. Thanks Dan and congrats again on the win.]
I met Ryan and Brian at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and after I won the “C” divison title, Ryan invited me to contribute to the blog, probably thinking I had some fascinating insights into competitive solving. Well, I don’t. If it’s insight you seek, Orange, Rex, Jim, Linda, and of course Ryan and Brian should have you covered.
But I do have a whole slew of crossword puzzle books. Before last October, when Wordplay aired on PBS, I was a casual solver, with a few New York Times collections that I’d solve on the subway and in pit orchestras. After seeing the movie, and discovering that the tournament was moving to Brooklyn, I started practicing like a madman, downloading hundreds of old puzzles and buying up a bunch of books. Even after my glorious triumph, I’m still expanding my library. So I thought I’d do a little roundup/review in case anyone out there, like me, entered the keyword “crosswords” into Amazon.com and was faced with several thousand options. How are you to know (besides the few reader reviews) which books are worth your time and money? Maybe I can help, after the jump…
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