Just over a week until the crossword tournament. Aaarrrgh! I need to be accurate and not panic. A recent Friday NYT took me 11:30 and lots of people were in the 4-5 range, so you never know when I may be struck dumb. I got through these books:
"Riddle Crosswords" by Harvey Estes - the riddle parts were generally groan-inducing puns. Sometimes they were anagrams of circled letters, which were not easy to get.
"Literary Crosswords: 50 All-New Puzzles from Austen to Zola" edited by Matt Gaffney - this was a joy. My favorite definition (Ray Hamel puzzle): "___ Take It" (Paul Rudnick book).
I also read "Please Remember Me" by Mari Brady. Graham Banks was a seriously ill teenager whose time was running out. "Please remember me," he told a hospital worker. So she wrote this 1978 book and now we can all remember him.
If you remember my 1969 diary, a lot was happening 40 (gasp!) years ago. It looks like my high school class will be having a reunion, but in 2010. The last was the 36th in 2005, so this makes perfect sense. It will be interesting to see how things unfold in the Facebook era.
