Crossword puzzles have a language all their own. This entertaining guide to grid lingo will improve your game while it fills in the mystery and history of this unique and playful idiom. Author David Bukszpan brings his deep word game knowledge and engaging educational style to this exploration of crosswordese and its evolution from antiquity to the age of LOL and LIZZO. Far more than a crossword puzzle lexicon, Crosswordese is full of fun entries,...

Combining the soul-baring confessional of Brain on Fire and the addictive storytelling of The Queen's Gambit, a renowned puzzle creator's compulsively readable memoir and history of the crossword puzzle as an unexpected site of women's work and feminist protest. The indisputable "queen of crosswords," Anna Shechtman published her first New York Times puzzle at age nineteen, and later, spearheaded the The New Yorker's popular crossword section. Working...