Cruciverbalism: A Crossword Fanatic's Guide to Life in the Grid

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Customer Reviews:

Entertaining [Posted on 2007-08-25]
An entertaining little book with some good suggestions for improving your crossword puzzle solving skills. A bit too much self-promotion for my taste.

Cruciverbalism [Posted on 2007-12-13]
Hey, if you like to work crossword puzzles you're gonna love this book. You will not only be thoroughly entertained, but you will learn a thing or two in the process. Newman's enthusiasm is contagious even though I was already quite passionate about the subject to begin with. Maybe even fanatical. But if I wasn't before reading Cruciverbalism, I probably qualify as a full-fledged fanatic now because I've experienced a distinct improvement in my solving skills thanks to a few insider tips from the master.

Check it out. You'll be glad you did.

Interesting and potentially outstanding, but diminished by unnecessary pettiness and self-promotion,  [Posted on 2008-04-12]
This work is marred by unexpected self-aggrandizement and mean-spiritedness. In the first chapter, the author lets us know he was able to beat competitors to win three major crossword competitions in a row. He also tells us he was brave enough to attack, in writing, Eugene Maleska, then crossword editor of the New York Times. Dr. Maleska's approach, and one of his apparent flaws as Mr. Newman sees it, was to encourage and use many crossword clues based on classical and obscure references, including Latin words, rather than the more pun-oriented wordplay, and contemporary references approach used by most modern crossword constructors. There is some irony that Mr. Newman's book is titled, "Cruciverbalism - A Crossword Fanatics's Guide..." rather than simply "Crosswords - A Fanatics's Guide ..."

Word play and current references make crossword puzzles accessible to a wider audience, while less common "academic" references often inform and educate. Thus, it is appropriate to contrast and discuss each of these approaches, and consider if one approach is always more appropriate and desirable, or if both should co-exist to appeal to different audiences, or to the same audiences at different times. However, Mr. Newman's comments are not just a reasoned explication and evaluation of these two construction approaches. Rather, his attacks are ad hominem, and appear to reflect a strong and extended personal animosity that has continued even after Dr. Maleska death in 1993.

Mr. Newman has, to me, the ill-manners to note that after Dr. Maleska's death he, Mr Newman, was assigned to edit Dr. Maleska's puzzles. To quote Mr. Newman, this is what the phrase "spinning in his grave" was invented for.

During Eugene Maleska's tenure at the New York Times he produced irritation and anger among some solvers and many constructors, not primarily by his approach to crossword construction which many disagreed with, but more by his notoriously sharp rejection letters to crossword constructors whose work he would not accept. An earlier perceptive reviewer told Mr. Newman to "deal with it"; I agree. Mr. Newman's obsession with Dr. Maleska, and the author's self-promotion, fatally damages what should otherwise have been an outstanding work.

Some reviewers here refer to the author as "Stan". Whether they already know him or not, its clear many folks hold him in high regard. Additionally, the book carries a short endorsement from the current and widely respected NY Times crossword editor. Thus, this work appears atypical of Mr. Newman's attitudes and relationships in the crossword world.

The author is clearly in the top tier of crossword solvers and constructors, and very well versed in the business side of crossword publishing. This work already contains some quite fascinating anecdotes and stories about crossword solvers and constructors, discussion of solution strategy, as well as some interesting history about the growth of the U.S. crossword interest/obsession. Its list of 100 essential words for crosswords puzzles is excellent. If the egregious personal attacks and egocentric references could be removed from any later editions, and the work expanded -- the relatively small format, page count, and margins make this almost more pamphlet-sized than book-sized -- to include more for Mr. Newman's clearly outstanding knowledge of crossword solution strategies, history, construction, and the crossword business this would be an exemplary work for crossword enthusiasts.

The often stated, "It's Not What You Say, It's How You Say It" applies here. Mr. Newman's stories and anecdotes are frequently informative and often fascinating. Rewritten with less animus, this would be an exceptional work. Unfortunately, in its current state, it reflects an inappropriate pettiness, and contains so much vain and boastful writing that it cannot be highly rated.

I am inspired [Posted on 2008-08-11]
I emerged as a new solver after reading this book. Highly educating, esp Chapter Five "Pulling Back the Curtain: The Hidden Rules of the Grid". I also loved the tips on how to get Saturday-savvy. D'oh! Now I understand why the top-row words are always consonants-concentrated. I also learned a lot from the author's explanation on the high occurrence of the Quartet letters (E, R S & D) at the bottom row. What a great REDS idea.

An inside look at crossword puzzle constructors and their thought process [Posted on 2008-08-15]
An interesting book for crossword lovers and fanatics alike!

I've had a strong interest in crossword puzzles for years now and after playing some related word-games, I've recently begun to wonder about the crossword puzzle construction process. So it was with this in mind that my curiosity became tweaked when I saw Newman's book "Cruciverbalism: A Crossword Fanatic's Guide to Life on the Grid", available on amazon.com. So I bought it and its turned out to be a good purchase.

The book in quite short; only 140 pages long and is divided into six chapters.

The first chapter deals with Newman's ongoing 'annoyance' with the late Eugene Maleska editing techniques as Editor of the NY Times Crossword in the 1980s and 90s. I've noticed some other reviewer were somewhat taken aback by this 'assault' on Maleska, but after reading this section, I think I can at least appreciate Newman's point of view. It was Newman's disagreement with Maleska's methods that ultimately lead Newman into his strong affiliation with crossword puzzles.

One chapter deals with the history of crosswords and yet another gives some background as to how Newman got into the crossword puzzle business as a lifetime vocation.

The real meat of the book resided in the three remaining chapters. Here we find several topics of interest...

1.)what puzzle constructors think about when constructing a grid; i.e. the basic rules. What's allowed and what isn't.

2.)100 commonly found 3 and 4 letter words (that are at least 50% vowels) and make up significant number of the short words that surround the main themes.

3.)There is one section called 'Hidden Rules of the Grid' that is an extensive list of the different categories of clues that constructors use when building a puzzle e.g. quips or quotes, foreign words, starters and enders, comparatives, fill in the blanks, plurals, hedgers, rivals...and many more. Each category is accompanied by a brief explanation and examples .

4.)The penultimate chapter discusses several useful tips as how to improve your solving abilities, but only if your intensely interested and willing to spend some time and considerable effort to do it.

5.)And finally, on the last 2 pages there are a couple tips on how to approach the more difficult 'Sunday Stumper' puzzle. With regards to items 1-4 above; I was vaguely aware of them to begin with and not truly surprised to see in this book. However, these last hints were something I'd never considered and would be very useful as an approach to solving harder puzzles.

Conclusion:
Although this book was not exactly what I was looking for, it was enjoyable and interesting to read. I was really looking for some useful ideas as to how to actually construct the physical puzzle itself. The main part of this book deals with how constructors think about tinkering with 'clues' to make an answer range from very easy to 'a revelation in the science of word-play'; and it succeeds famously in this regard.

R.Nicholson

P.S.
In my meager attempts to construct even the simplest puzzle, I became acutely aware of just how hard it is to get even a corner of a puzzle to meld, let alone an entire grid. I've even consulted computer crossword puzzle makers, put in a couple of witty phrases that I want to use as my theme; the result, the program whirled for a long time and in the end came up with nothing usable. So my admiration (and some degree of jealousy as well) has increased for these cruciverbalistic heroes, since my humbling experiment with CW construction.

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