Two Girls, One on Each Knee: The Puzzling, Playful World of the Crossword

Description

A delightful language book for readers of the Etymologicon and Eats, Shoots and Leaves - a wonderful gift book full of surprising and exhilarating stories In the century since its birth, the crossword has evolved into the world's most popular intellectual pastime- a unique form of wordplay, the codes and conventions of which are open to anyone masochistic enough to get addicted. In Two Girls, One on Each Knee, Alan Connor celebrates the wit, ingenuity and frustration of setting and solving puzzles. From the beaches of D-Day to the imaginary worlds of three-dimensional crosswords, to the British school teachers and journalists who turned the form into the fiendish sport it is today, encompassing the most challenging clues, particular tricks, the world's greatest setters and famous solvers, PG Wodehouse and the torturers of the Spanish Inquisition, this is an ingenious book for lovers of this very particular form of wordplay.

Alan Connor writes twice weekly about crosswords for the Guardian. He has contributed pieces about language for the BBC and the Guardian and works in radio and television, writing with Charlie Brooker and Sue Perkins. His most recent writing was A Young Doctor's Notebook, a TV adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov stories starring Daniel Radcliffe and Jon Hamm.

Alan Connor's charming, fascinating history . . . is as elegantly sprinkled with surprising gems as the most satisfying crossword . . . thoroughly, consistently entertaining . . . In a single, gloriously decipherable chapter he lays out with perfect clarity the entire range of rules and devices through which cryptic clues work their magic * Sunday Times * It is witty, charming, encyclopaedic and highly readable - and it can be read in any order. Take a chapter or a paragraph, a puzzle or a clue. In each the reader will find something to intrigue and delight. * Spectator * Two Girls is a lovingly crafted little book, from the table of contents - where chapter titles are hidden in a crossword designed by the great Araucaria - to the index, which skips from "I give up, see frustration" via "primness in American crosswords", to finish with "zookeepers, beleaguered". * The Times * A lovingly crafted little book . . . Connor's wry, good-natured tone and his commitment to the serious business of play make him the perfect guide to a great pastime as it approaches its 100th birthday * Daily Telegraph * Connor writes with great flair . . . it is nice to dip in and out of his entertaining essays * Church Times * An ideal stocking filler * Metro * The brilliant new book on crosswords that delivers fun galore whether you're a doer or a duffer * Mail on Sunday * There is something to entertain even the most infrequent dabbler * Financial Times *