Boatman - The First 50 : Collected Crosswords from the Guardian and the Stories Behind Them - Ashley Knowles

Fiendish and inimitable, Boatman is widely regarded as one of Britain's most challenging and innovative compilers of cryptic crosswords. In this book, you'll find fifty of his puzzles from the Guardian, with an additional bonus crossword that was first published online in the Genius slot. So much more than a puzzle book, here Boatman tells the story in his own words behind the development of each crossword: how he thought of the theme, the ideas that didn't make it into print and the unlikely coincidences that emerged afterwards. You'll discover his working methods and the lively relationship between setter and editor, be able to enjoy extra teaser clues and hear from the solvers who took the time to comment on the puzzles when they were first published. All the crosswords in this collection have been freshly typeset to make solving them an even greater joy, with full solutions and explanations of all the wordplay. Expect many hours of pleasure here, whether you're coming to Boatman's puzzles for the first time, looking for older pieces you may have missed in print, rediscovering half-forgotten favourites or returning to try again with a few that may have defeated you the first time round. Guardian Crossword Editor, Hugh Stephenson, writes: This is a unique book of crosswords. There are countless books of cryptic puzzles in print or online and almost as many books about how to set or to solve them. This one consists of Boatman's first 50 Guardian puzzles, plus solutions. So far, so normal. What makes the book unique, though, is that he has added to each solution a commentary on how that puzzle evolved in his mind as he was in the process of creating it. His commentaries on each puzzle's solution describe how, in a good cryptic puzzle, there is a texture and a cohesion that goes beyond simply filling a grid and writing clues that observe the recognised cryptic conventions. Many compilers, especially with the help of modern software, can fill in a grid and write technically acceptable clues. Few, like Boatman, can regularly achieve a cryptic puzzle that leaves the solver genuinely satisfied with the time and effort expended.