Download PDF The New York Times Sunday Best Crossword Puzzles 75 Sunday Puzzles The New York Times Will Shortz 9781250198419 Books

Product details Paperback 192 pages Publisher St. Martin's Griffin (March 19, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 1250198410

The New York Times Sunday Best Crossword Puzzles 75 Sunday Puzzles The New York Times Will Shortz 9781250198419 Books Reviews

• I got this collection of 75 crossword puzzles to work on mainly while on the exercise bike. My last collection had been "The New York Times Will Shortz Presents Crosswords for 365 Days A Year of Easy to Hard Puzzles" (2006), but I had gotten to the point that all of those puzzles that I could solve had already been finished, so I needed a replacement. That collection had a couple of advantages over this one (1) Three times as many puzzles included for just a few dollars more; (2) a wide range of difficulty among the puzzles; (3) paper of a heavier weight, so virtually no bleed-through of images from one side of the page to the other. On what may be the plus side, a lot of the cultural references in the puzzles from the older book were pretty stale. I just started using the new one, but the initial signs look pretty good--one question references a campaign slogan from the 2016 US presidential campaign; another refers to Kanye West lyrics, the 2009 Grammy awards, and the "company that passed Walmart in 2015 as the world's largest retailer by market value." Also, this book is thinner and a lot lighter, so much easier to hold while exercising, and probably much more convenient to carry or pack while traveling.
  
  The main reason I am writing this review is to point out that this edition seems to be an improvement over several of the New York Times crossword puzzle books published in the past few years that many reviewers complained had print that was too small and pages that were far too thin to be useful. This edition's format, with the clues on the left-hand pages and the puzzle grids on the right, is such that bleed-through is not a hindrance, even with the black ink of the pens I use. The font size seems to be about the same or maybe just slightly smaller than in the "Crosswords for 365 Days" book, with capital letters that are about 2mm tall. (Actually, the letters might be a little closer together than in the older book, but I haven't found that to be a problem.)
  
  I would have preferred getting another collection of easy-to-hard Monday-through-Sunday New York Times puzzles, rather than just puzzles from a single day of the week, but I did not see any recently published collections like that, so from what appeared to be available, this one seems to be fine.
  
  For those who care, each puzzle has about 120 horizontal and 120 vertical questions. The book measures roughly 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches, and weighs 200 grams (just under half a pound).
• Be warned....puzzles number 61 and 64 have misprinted grids. Squares are blocked out when they shouldn't be or vice versa. Bad enough by itself, but, in these cases, also screwing up the whole puzzle theme. I know these books are a cash cow for the NY Times and Will Shortz, thanks to puzzle addicts like me, but they shouldn't spit them out so fast they can't be bothered to get the grids right. It's disrespectful to both the puzzle solvers and the the puzzle makers. Shame.