Crossword Art: Puzzles in Tribute to the English Language
Book Details
Author(s)
George F Wunder
Publisher
ImprintGFW
ISBN / ASIN
0615900283
ISBN-13
9780615900285
Availability
Usually ships in 24 hours
Sales Rank
#2,757,007
Marketplace
United States 🇺🇸
Ratings & Reviews
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Description
About Crossword Art:
First and foremost, Crossword Art is a collection of 100 challenging and nontraditional crosswords requiring aspiring solvers to think outside the box. Combining humor and trivia with some serious mental calisthenics, Crossword Art takes crosswords in a decidedly different direction. Well, several different directions.
Each American-style puzzle has been carefully designed around one or more themes that generally dominate the action. While traditional crosswords focus on long themed entries and large areas of white space in between, there is no room to spare here. Themes, pangrams and puns abound in compact designs from a few nasty 11x11s up to 15x15 squared.
The differences are apparent in more than simply the grids themselves. With the creative freedom of a blank canvas and no rules, clues are often re-imagined to match the puzzle's theme, or warped to make things a bit more difficult.
Beyond the crosswords themselves are rewards at the bottom of each page - Challenges and Word Games that often extend the theme. By the time you finish some puzzles and their related games, your finished crossword might just look like a Picasso.
There are also some unique features designed to minimize frustration without spoiling the fun. No one enjoys finishing 99% only to be stuck where an old French currency crosses a 19th century opera singer. Crossword Art has an innovative ‘Anagrams’ page where three of each page's toughest entries can be found. Theme(s) are found in a similar section, both in non-spoiler and spoiler fashion. You can choose to use these features to adjust difficulty or to verify you're on the right track.
Some of what you'll find:
* Normal crosswords with crazy clues.
* Crazy crosswords with normal clues.
* Crazy crosswords with, well, crazy clues.
* Ancient treasures: Greek letters, Roman numerals... and Pig Latin?
* Grid lines - always necessary?
* Words that twist and turn.
* Tons of trivia tied to English's quirks
* 'Tribute puzzles' to all sorts of English language weirdness.
* Clues that tell a story or connect together.
* Grid adornments and other designs... sometimes just for fun, but sometimes purposeful.
* Literal wordplay, especially in the titles and extra games.
* Rhymes, songs and really long words crammed into tiny spaces, and
even a crossword that must be solved as a logic puzzle.
What you will not find:
* Rigid rules of construction.
* Dumbed-down content.
My advise to testers was to approach each puzzle as a jigsaw, piecing it together slowly. Did I mention using a pencil? I understand the satisfaction of finishing the Sunday puzzles in pen, but it’s just not that kind of collection.
Why is it Crossword "Art"? The art was in exploring/exploding themes and highlighting the best and strangest of what English has to offer. I hope you enjoy the challenge.
-George Wunder
(samples on Facebook, at facebook.com/CrosswordArt)
First and foremost, Crossword Art is a collection of 100 challenging and nontraditional crosswords requiring aspiring solvers to think outside the box. Combining humor and trivia with some serious mental calisthenics, Crossword Art takes crosswords in a decidedly different direction. Well, several different directions.
Each American-style puzzle has been carefully designed around one or more themes that generally dominate the action. While traditional crosswords focus on long themed entries and large areas of white space in between, there is no room to spare here. Themes, pangrams and puns abound in compact designs from a few nasty 11x11s up to 15x15 squared.
The differences are apparent in more than simply the grids themselves. With the creative freedom of a blank canvas and no rules, clues are often re-imagined to match the puzzle's theme, or warped to make things a bit more difficult.
Beyond the crosswords themselves are rewards at the bottom of each page - Challenges and Word Games that often extend the theme. By the time you finish some puzzles and their related games, your finished crossword might just look like a Picasso.
There are also some unique features designed to minimize frustration without spoiling the fun. No one enjoys finishing 99% only to be stuck where an old French currency crosses a 19th century opera singer. Crossword Art has an innovative ‘Anagrams’ page where three of each page's toughest entries can be found. Theme(s) are found in a similar section, both in non-spoiler and spoiler fashion. You can choose to use these features to adjust difficulty or to verify you're on the right track.
Some of what you'll find:
* Normal crosswords with crazy clues.
* Crazy crosswords with normal clues.
* Crazy crosswords with, well, crazy clues.
* Ancient treasures: Greek letters, Roman numerals... and Pig Latin?
* Grid lines - always necessary?
* Words that twist and turn.
* Tons of trivia tied to English's quirks
* 'Tribute puzzles' to all sorts of English language weirdness.
* Clues that tell a story or connect together.
* Grid adornments and other designs... sometimes just for fun, but sometimes purposeful.
* Literal wordplay, especially in the titles and extra games.
* Rhymes, songs and really long words crammed into tiny spaces, and
even a crossword that must be solved as a logic puzzle.
What you will not find:
* Rigid rules of construction.
* Dumbed-down content.
My advise to testers was to approach each puzzle as a jigsaw, piecing it together slowly. Did I mention using a pencil? I understand the satisfaction of finishing the Sunday puzzles in pen, but it’s just not that kind of collection.
Why is it Crossword "Art"? The art was in exploring/exploding themes and highlighting the best and strangest of what English has to offer. I hope you enjoy the challenge.
-George Wunder
(samples on Facebook, at facebook.com/CrosswordArt)
