Customer Reviews

100 Clever Crosswords

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Thomas Joseph is hands-down, my absolute favorite master of crossword puzzles. My only complaint is that he doesn't have dozens of books available for purchase! His puzzle is featured daily in our local newspaper, and is the last thing I do after reading the entire paper (always save the best for last). I got "100 Clever Crosswords" for Christmas this year and had flown through 20 puzzles on Christmas Day before I realized I'd have to pace myself or use up all the fun before the week was out!

Thomas Joseph's crossword puzzles are easy enough to complete without having to dig through reference guides, but challenging enough that you have to work through the entire puzzle to get the answers to a few difficult clues. Completing his puzzles brings a great deal of satisfaction, but also a little sadness that it's done.

Mr. Joseph -- please, please, please! publish more of these wonderful books!!

This is a great book! My husband and I love doing a puzzle or two from this book when we have a little extra time together. We find it is the perfect level of puzzle for us . . . the puzzles are challenging, yet not impossible (to give you an idea, we're both college graduates who enjoy word games, but we find the NY Times puzzles get a little too difficult on the weekends). Thomas Joseph's puzzles are also fun because they are clever, as the title of this book suggests. Each puzzle has at least two longer answers that correspond with each other, making a sort of theme for the puzzle (i.e. punching bag and sleeping bag, Manic Monday and Ruby Tuesday). I hope you find the right book for you -- this one's perfect for us!

Thomas Joseph is the king of recycled clues and answers. If, like me, your daily paper carries his crossword puzzles, you may be familiar with the fact that you are guaranteed to see at least three recycled answers within a one week period in his crosswords. So if you're looking for an easy crossword puzzle book this is an okay choice, but if you want any challenge at all, avoid Joseph like the plague. Thomas Joseph gets absolutely no points for creativity or imagination.

Put simply, 'slue' is not a synonym of 'rotate.' Furthermore, to judge from the amount of recycling in these 'puzzles,' I estimate Mr. Joseph's vocabulary to consist of not more than six or seven hundred words, approximately the same as my two-year-old daughter's.