Across the universe The past, present, and future of the crossword puzzle

Natan Last is uniquely qualified to present the story of the crossword, having been solving and later constructing puzzles for most of his life. He even worked under Will Shortz, the esteemed longtime editor of The New York Times crossword. Last's reverence for the crossword radiates throughout, gamboling (a fitting crossword term) between the puzzle's history as a post-war leisure craze in the 1920s to the current community of enthusiasts who are reshaping the grid in both form and substance. Crosswords, whether in the construction or editing phase, have lacked representation across gender, race, and age vis-à-vis what merits inclusion in a format that had long eschewed popular culture or relied on very limited reference points when including non-English languages and cultures. See the overreliance on an answer like "naan," ignoring the many other culinary contributions of India. Last does well not to temper either his excitement or expertise in the crossword discipline, combining nuanced analysis of puzzle construction and a firm encomium (another grid-ready word) that cruciverbalists will savor.

New Yorker crossword constructor Last debuts with an enthusiastic if uneven exploration of the crossword puzzle. He gives an expansive overview of the game's history, from its 1913 origins--it was at first dubbed a "Word-Cross"--to the New York Times's ongoing domination (even though the Times rejected crosswords as "unserious, even dangerous" until WWII). The many angles the book takes include an astute look at present-day "dissatisfaction with editing norms" for skewing white and male; an overview of technological innovations, from '90s audiotext clue hotlines (1-900-884-CLUE) to today's AI crossword solvers; and an entertaining account of the 1920s crossword craze, which generated delightfully bizarre cultural spinoffs--like novelty song "Cross-Word Mamma, You Puzzle Me"--as well as comparisons between the viral crossword phenomenon and the flu. However, Last's own crossword craze leads him to make some big stretches, such as equating crosswords with modernist literature and fantasizing, in exhaustive detail, about the wall text at an imaginary exhibition of crossword maker Elizabeth Gorski's work ("In Gorski's hands, these grids... gesture at the grandiose"). The book charms most when Last shows crosswords bringing people together: adult siblings who bond over crosswords when caring for their ailing mother; a woman who completes her late father's folder of half-finished crosswords in "a collaboration across time." It's a meandering love letter best suited for fellow obsessives. (Nov.)