Twisted Crosswords (Mensa) [Spiral-bound]

Henry Hook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 2003 | Series: Mensa

These clever word games will really make your brain work overtime to come up with the solutions. Each one has a little twist, something unusual to keep crossword and other puzzle lovers on their toes. Around and Abouts will get heads spinning and searching for the letters that fit in a circular grid; "around" answers go counterclockwise, while the "about" clues overlap them in a clockwise fashion. Work it out from Tops to Bottoms, where two letters fit into every square; Crushword also crunches several letters--sometimes more than four--into each grid. Answers to Weavers clues form a continuous chain, with the first letter fitting into a central starred space; the next four go into adjoining numbered spots. The rest shuttle back and forth across and around the diagram. Plus: Quadrants, Crazy Eights, Catching Some Z's, Siamese Twins, Honeycombs, and other great puzzlers!

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 96 pages
• Publisher: Sterling (August 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402708270
• ISBN-13: 978-1402708275
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #391,598 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crosswords with an interesting twist, June 22, 2004

By 

Eileen Rieback (Coral Springs, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Twisted Crosswords (Mensa) (Spiral-bound)

If you are tired of conventional crosswords and want to try something a bit different, Henry Hook's "Twisted Crosswords" might be just what you are looking for. You may have seen puzzles with some of these unusual formats in the pages of Games Magazine, and now you can tackle a complete book of them. The collection contains a generous variety of different puzzle types, each with its unique word placement rules and challenges. Many of them have unconventional, visually pleasing grids that include honeycombs, triangles, weaves, three dimensional cubes, and spirals. Words might be entered diagonally, in a circle, snaking through the grid, or wrapping around the edges. In some puzzles, two or more letters may be entered in every square. In others, there are identical grids with multiple clue sets, and it is up to you to determine which grid the words go into. Words weave, overlap, and intersect with each other in novel ways. Give these puzzles a try!

Eileen Rieback

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun crossword variations, June 19, 2007

By 

Math Man (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Twisted Crosswords (Mensa) (Spiral-bound)

If you've been a reader of Games Magazine, you'll recognize the format of many of these crosswords. Instead of marching left to right and top to bottom as a normal crossword does, you'll find all sorts of variations: answers arranged in circles, multiple letters in a box and some where you don't even know where to start the answer.

The puzzles themselves are well done, although the introduction and explanation for some of the puzzles leaves a little room for improvement. Once you see how a particular kind of puzzle is intended to be filled in it's fairly straightforward, but with some of them the instructions are quite vague and almost seem to assume you already know how to do the puzzle and the instructions are simply pro-forma.

If you're intrigued by unusual word puzzles, this book is definitely for you. Due to the way that the puzzles are organized, although the clues are not always too difficult, not knowing a few of them can make a puzzle very tricky to solve. These are definitely not for someone who gets easily frustrated.