Thinking Inside the Box

Fun and a pretty quick read - though probably not all that interesting unless you like crosswords, obviously. Luckily, I do, and I enjoyed the author's journey through the history of puzzles. I would've liked a little less focus on the New York Times crossword puzzle; while it's still clearly the most prominent, I think there's a lot more interesting (and certainly more inclusive) work being done in the indie-puzzle world. There are brief mentions of that, and a good section dealing with several of the more recent racial/gender controversies in the NYT puzzle, but I would've loved longer interviews with people like Ben Tausig or the editors of the Inkubator. Overall, though, I really did enjoy this and the epilogue about a crossword cruise is hilarious!