Crossworlds -- Book 29; Fun Fact 35

How much of a nerd am I? Not only do I do the NY Times crossword everyday, now I've also read an entire book about crossword culture. This book provides some interesting details about the emergence of crosswords in the early part of the 20th century, the way that their structure and norms vary nationally, and the style of various editors of the NY Times puzzle over time (including Will Shortz's decisions to make the puzzle steadily more difficult through the week and to include pop culture and sports as legitimate clues). Perhaps most interesting were the sections on the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament held annually in Stamford CT. About 500 people attend, falling into 3 different flights, the C flight being pegged roughly to Monday and Tuesday puzzles, B to Thursdays and A to Saturdays. The best solvers can do an A level difficulty puzzle that is the size of a Sunday puzzle (21x21) in 5-10 minutes! While I enjoyed learning all of this, I have to say that I did not like the author's writing style. He jumped all over the place in terms of topic (perhaps that is how great puzzlers think?), and was too willing to congratulating himself on his own puzzling prowess, while at the same time providing a lot of excuses for his less than top flight performance. Still, I enjoyed the book, especially the second half which focussed on the tournament -- anyone want to go next year?

Fun fact: My friend Helena was a contestant on Will Shortz' Sunday puzzler on NPR a few years back.