- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Times Books; illustrated edition edition (7 Nov 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007216920
- ISBN-13: 978-0007216925
- Product Dimensions: 20 x 13.2 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 615,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
The Times crossword has become ingrained in the fabric of British society and many of The Times' readers regard the crossword as by far the most important part of the paper. This book will celebrate 75 years of the most famous crossword in the world.
In 1930, the crossword was not keenly received by The Times and it was owing to reader pressure that the crossword became a daily feature in the paper. With the British love of wordplay, riddles and puns, the crossword soon became an integral part of life in Britain.
Included will be a crossword for every year since 1930 including the first ever crossword published in The Times and a specially commissioned 75th anniversary prize crossword. These crosswords will be taken from prominent days in history and will show the development of the crossword over the years. There will be specially commissioned articles from former editors, who are often compilers themselves, recounting their experience of the crossword. Perhaps the people with the most interesting things to say are the solvers. An appeal inThe Times has requested for crossword devotees to send in their favourite clues, anecdotes and memories about the crossword.
Did you know:
• Sir Winston Churchill was reported to have almost missed a cabinet meeting while pondering a stubborn clue
• Sir John Gielgud was an addict at the age of 84, 'I have found the crosswords a sovereign therapy during endless hours of waiting about while filming and during television'
• As stated in Clement Atlee's obituary 'Sometimes, his main interest in The Times was the crossword puzzle, which he unfailingly solved
• It is alleged that Montague James, a former provost of Eton college, completed the crossword while his breakfast egg boiled – and he did not, it was added, like his egg hard-boiled
About the Author
Foreword by Colin Dexter
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Previous Times anniversary collections have (from memory) just had a puzzle for each year and a short introduction. This one is like the 80-year collection of Telegraph puzzles which appeared a few months before it - one puzzle per year plus some other information. This other stuff is more varied and entertaining than in the Telegraph book, partly because of the Times puzzle's reputation as the best and/or hardest daily cryptic crossword. We get Max Beerbohm's famous impossible puzzle, early correspondence about whether there should be a Times crossword, and some good poems and reminiscences including coverage of the annual Crossword Championship and plenty of interesting but less familiar stories. Oddly, the "Provost of Eton and egg-boiling" legend is not included.
Flaws: the considerable changes in the style of the puzzle itself are not explicitly described - you have to read between the lines a bit or tackle the puzzles themselves - some of the older ones are absolute beasts for solvers under 50 years of age. Hooking up puzzles to news stories ("6 May 1994 - Channel Tunnel Opens" and so on) implies (not necessrily accurately) that relatively little effort was made to choose representative or interesting puzzles.
Maybe next time - if an 80-year book comes out in 2010...
Flaws: the considerable changes in the style of the puzzle itself are not explicitly described - you have to read between the lines a bit or tackle the puzzles themselves - some of the older ones are absolute beasts for solvers under 50 years of age. Hooking up puzzles to news stories ("6 May 1994 - Channel Tunnel Opens" and so on) implies (not necessrily accurately) that relatively little effort was made to choose representative or interesting puzzles.
Maybe next time - if an 80-year book comes out in 2010...
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