Customer Reviews

Bob's Bible: Words, Anagrams and Hooks

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Bob's Bible took the competitive Scrabble world by storm. Within a few short months of its initial publication it graced the shelves of most of the nation's top Scrabble players. It is formatted to include hooks and anagrams for each entry, which is essential information for the competitive Scrabble player. All words are sanctioned for use in club and tournament play and it is the same word source used by many online word games, such as Literati and WordOx. Of the dozens of word books and dictionaries I own and use for various word games, Bob's Bible has proven to be the most useful and valuable. I love it!

The new edition is better than ever. Not only do you get the complete list of the latest Official Scrabble words with the hook letters on each side and the anagrams below (great format), but there are lists of words that are extremely helpful. Start with the 2 and 3 letter words, then learn the JQXZ words (listed by word length). The 4s and 5s are also listed separately as are words with too many vowels and NO vowels.

There is a list of Q not followed by UA UE UI or UO... so you get QI QAT TRANG BURQA UMIAQ BUQSHA EXEQUY OBLOQUY OBSEQUY and even MBAQANGA. This is a short one page list of less than 40 words.

Then there Jumble Quizzes for thousands of the most likely bingos (7 and 8 letter words) and more jumble quizzes for all the words (short & long words)that have more than one anagram. Test yourself!

My favorite new section has every single word that can take a new letter on the front-- listed alphabetically by word length. Who knew that OVERYFLY takes an H to make HOVERFLY (an insect)??? Did you know that ELK takes a Y to mak YELK? You probably know that ARTISAN can make PARTISAN, but what about BARTISAN? There are 14 pages of these.

Oh, and equally cool, is the back hook section. Somehow, the author has only included words with a back hooks other than S plurals and -D past tenses. So you get WISH making WISHA, STAMPED making STAMPEDE and all the nonstandard plurals like BEAU+X and AMEBA+E. Only 12 pages and you see as many weird hooks as the National Scrabble Champ knows.

If you need a gift for a Scrabble player or word puzzler, this is a great choice. It's suitable for beginners, intermediate, experts and even National Scrabble Champions.

This book gives you all the words in the Official Word List,
saving you the need to buy a copy unless you're using it to
judge challenges in club games and someone objects to the
extra information: front and back hooks, and anagrams, for
every word listed. It's great fun to browse for such lovely
anagram pairs as SNAKEBIT BEATNIKS, OILIEST IOLITES, and my
current favorite, ONANISM MANSION -- and you might just retain
a new word or two. If you play in NSA tournaments, you need
this book, period.

This is a great reference and very easy to use. My friends are amazed at the words I come up with. It gives a beginner a lot of confidence!

This new 2009 version is better than ever.

This revised and expanded edition also contains over 100 pages of beginner and expert study lists: the 2 letter words, 3 letter words, 4 letter words, the JQXZ words for each length 2-8 letters, the Heavy-vowel words for each length 2-8 letter and the no-AEIOU words for each length 2-8 letters. There are jumble type quizzes for all 7 and 8 letter words with more than one anagram and for the top several thousand most likely 7 and 8 letter words.

Best of all, there are sections purely for all words with front hooks and another for all non-trivial back hooks. If you play Scrabble, you need this book!

Correction:
The complete list of 5-letter words are also a new addition to this edition! The main section is still the meat of the book with a complete alphabetical listing of each 2-8 letter word, flanked by the one letter extensions to the front and back for that word and underscored with its anagrams.

This book is the only one that uses the full dictionary used at sanctioned Scrabble Tournaments. If you are interested only in the School Championship lexicon check out Bob's Bible: Words, Hooks & Anagrams - School Edition.

One place shopping when your looking for the perfect word for scrabble. Love the book! A but hard to figure out initially, but then it all makes sense. Definite buy for scrabble players.

I'm amazed at how many Scrabble games I win versus when I didn't have the book. Big thanks to R. Gillis!

Bob's Bible is a perfect resource for improving play. It offers useful lists to extricate a player from tight spots (i.e. the vowelless rack or vowel-heavy rack). It lists both the short and 6-8 letter JQXZ words. Plus, every entry includes the front and back hooks as well as the anagrams of that word which allows the player to see how that word will fit into play or how his opponent might hook onto that word during play. This book has broadened my potential and energized my game. I feel I've found the secret formula for successful play!

If I were limited to just one word book to bring to a desert island, this one would be it. Hands down, the most encyclopedic, accurate (zero typos) and most cost effective Scrabble reference source in print. Perhaps the only negative, now that we're a decade out from its original publication, is that the numerous word finder apps available (mostly free) to any owner of a Droid or Iphone may make a book like this somewhat obsolete. Still, if you like the old school printed page, this one is indispensable. Just about every rated tourney Scrabble expert, including myself, owns one or two copies.

Great book for the serious Scrabble player. It takes a bit of practice learning the format and navigating through the book, but once that is mastered, it's a great resource for learning and adding Scrabble words to one's vocabulary.