The Atlantic Monthly Cryptic Crosswords (Other) [Spiral-bound]

Emily Cox (Author), Henry Rathvon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 17, 2003 | Series: Other

In the mid-1970s, when The Atlantic Monthly's editors decided to feature a puzzle in each issue, they needed something unique that would appeal to their readership. Fortunately, they found Emily Cox & Henry Rathvon, whose variety cryptics have now been appearing in the magazine for 25 years. Cryptic crosswords are a specialized type of puzzle, particularly popular among lovers of books, language and wordplay; variety cryptics go one step further. Cox & Rathvon, arguably North America's pre-eminent cryptic authors, literally "wrote the book". The 45 puzzles in this collection, not previously available in book form, are among their best.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

EMILY COX & HENRY RATHVON create half of the Sunday crosswords for The Boston Globe (alternating with Henry Hook) and all of the acrostics for The New York Times.

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 64 pages
• Publisher: Random House Puzzles & Games (June 17, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812935128
• ISBN-13: 978-0812935127
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,096,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Devilishly difficult, November 23, 2003

By 

Eileen Rieback (Coral Springs, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Atlantic Monthly Cryptic Crosswords (Other) (Spiral-bound)

Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon create some of the most clever and fiendishly difficult cryptic crosswords around. Unless you are already skilled at solving conventional cryptic crosswords, this is not the book for you, since it does not have the several pages of solving hints usually provided as a preface to most cryptic puzzle books.

These puzzles originally appeared in The Atlantic Monthly between 1986 and 1998. Each of these puzzles has an additional "gimmick" to it that makes the solving that much more difficult, such as answers that bend around the grid, unclued words, dropped/added/shuffled letters in the clues or answers, random order clues, and so on. If you love a challenge, these puzzles are for you. You will have a real feeling of accomplishment when you complete one.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great themed cryptics!, June 17, 2003

By 

Marcia Stutzman "mstutzmn" (Harrisonburg, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Atlantic Monthly Cryptic Crosswords (Other) (Spiral-bound)

As always, Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon have produced a great selection of cryptics crosswords. Their clues have just the right amount of cleverness without being too hard to figure out. This book doesn't have any "regular" ones, they each have some kind of an extra twist, so they're all interesting. These have run in the Atlantic Monthly before, but it was before I started doing them in there, so I'm glad for this collection.

5.0 out of 5 stars Best cryptics around!, April 14, 2011

By 

Belle - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Atlantic Monthly Cryptic Crosswords (Other) (Spiral-bound)

These two, along with Richard Maltbie at Harper's magazine are by far the best cryptic puzzle makers in the business. Almost all of the puzzles have a theme, or an extra trick about them, that make them WAY more fun than just your standard cryptic. If you do these types of puzzles a lot, you will LOVE the extra challenge in these.