From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Dean Olsher has written a great book that everyone will love, not just crossword people." -- Isaac Mizrahi --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Review

"From Square One takes the reader into stranger and more illuminating corners of the world glimpsed in Wordplay. Dean Olsher shows the wide-ranging and nimble mind you'd expect of someone who loves crosswords." -- Stewart O'Nan, author of Last Night at the Lobster and Songs for the Missing

"This is my kind of book. If you like words, and wordplay, and the oddities of the imagination, and the company of an engaging and witty narrator, then it is your kind of book, too." -- Meg Wolitzer, author of The Ten-Year Nap and The Wife

"Dean Olsher is the Robert Pirsig of crossword puzzles." -- Jon Delfin, seven-time American Crossword Puzzle Tournament champion

"If Dean Olsher wrote a book on the history of plumbing supplies, I would snap it up. He whips the subject in a blender of love, curiosity, elation, mystery, humor, and obsession (plenty of that). Plus, you learn a lot of odd and interesting facts about crossword puzzles -- and human beings." -- Maira Kalman, author of The Principles of Uncertainty

"Dean Olsher has written a great book that everyone will love, not just crossword people." -- Isaac Mizrahi

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1 edition (June 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743287622
• ISBN-13: 978-0743287623
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #197,079 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars flawed but really interesting, June 29, 2009

By	gerryb (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews

I loved the amazing information so fluidly presented- a fascinating history of crosswords and the gossip, recollections and stories of puzzlers both famous and unknown. I loved finding out that Meg Wolitzer, author of one of my favorite novels ("The Wife") is a serious crossword person. I also am a huge fan of cryptics, but don't really care if they take America by storm as long as I can get a few good ones a month from Harpers, The Atlantic and other odd sources.

What I really disagree with strenuously is Olsher's idea that solving crosswords is akin tot he experience to listening to a great piece of music or viewing a great work of art. This is just plain silly. As a visual
artist and crossword fiend I find this ridiculous. Crosswords, especially cryptics, yield intense experiences. So do great works of art, but logic 101 teaches correctly that because two things have something in common it does not folllow that they are the same thing. One huge difference is that crosswords have only one solution. Art often has many "solutions" or perhaps more to the point, none at all. One cannot "solve" an art experience. One can analyze it but that may not be the point. This hyperbole about art and crosswords almost ruined an otherwise excellent book

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific, moving, June 27, 2009

By	Barbra Tarkenton (Simsbury, CT) - See all my reviews

I loved this book. What's wonderful about it is the way it seamlessly blends autobiographical details with a solid, well-reported appreciation of crossword puzzles. Yes, you learn about how avid British crossword puzzlers were recruited to help solve the Enigma code during WWII, and yes, you learn what the editors of crossword puzzles think makes a good puzzle ("fresh fill"), but what really lasts in the reader's mind are the scenes between the author and his father. (And also the story of a couple wherein the husband wakes up early to do the puzzle, and then erases all his answers so his wife can do it.) This book is literary in the best sense of the word.