2024 the best of times review

Price: $14.00 - $12.27
(as of Dec 10, 2024 00:06:17 UTC - Details)

You know you’re a seasoned puzzle solver when you can crack the tricky, outside-the-box New York Times Thursday crossword! This volume collects all your favorite Thursday puzzles in one big, spiral-bound edition.

Features:
- Fifty of the Times’s Thursday, medium level crosswords
- Fun wordplay!
- Covered spiral binding for easy spine-out shelving.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Griffin; Csm Spi edition (May 16, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Spiral-bound ‏ : ‎ 64 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250133211
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250133212
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.9 x 0.3 x 11 inches
Reviewer: R. Russell
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Exactly what someone used to a Thursday NY Times puzzle hopes for.
Review: For strong cruciverbalists (crossword people) only. Not only are the clues difficult, there are many "trick" puzzles that require outside-the-box thinking. Reading the comments from others I notice that people are frustrated that the solutions require breaking some rules, including the "rule" that says only one letter per box or that words must be correctly spelled. That happens every so often on Thursdays.Be warned: These are not puzzles like you'd find in TV Guide. But do try to solve them. They are clever and rewarding.Note to editor: It would be nice to have date of original publication in NYT so as to be able to search online for explainations of seemingly inexplicable answers. (Although maybe just a search for the clue would work.) Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope it helps. If you are a a young or inexperienced solver, stick to Monday NY Times puzzles as they are more strait forward (no rule breaking) and easier.

Reviewer: Annie
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Awesome puzzles!! Very challenging!
Review: I like the way the book is constructed. It makes it very easy to use You can do the puzzles on both pages without having to crease the book

Reviewer: Carol T.
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Ok
Review: Puzzles use lots of archaic terms in clues and answers. Not a full winner but if you like crosswords you will grudgingly like it.

Reviewer: Shawn
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Get your think tank working with challenging puzzles
Review: The spiral spine definitely makes this puzzle book an easy page turner. The puzzles on the other hand will keep your brain happy for days. Thursday puzzles have a special something and with Will Shorts we know they are all going to be fun.

Reviewer: Dirk Reed
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: THESE PUZZLES WILL HAVE YOUR BRAIN IN OVERDRIVE!
Review: If you've "mastered" the Wednesday puzzles and have now graduated to Thursday's, be prepared for an entirely new level of crossword insanity! All the themes are extremely tricky - many are brilliantly witty - and the clues are beyond "far out". But each and every puzzle is immensely satisfying, even if you have to stretch your mind to its outer limits. Highly recommended for fun-loving cruciverbal masochists... like me!

Reviewer: A Good Person
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: NY Times Spiral Bound Crossword Books are Great!
Review: I like the New York Times spiral-bound crossword puzzle books. I discovered that I'm somewhere between a "Wednesday" puzzle person and a "Thursday" puzzle person, so I've been buying both. I especially enjoy the spiral bound books. They're a little expensive, but the format makes them easy to work with, and easy to write in. The squares are large enough, the paper is the right kind, and I don't have to struggle to keep the book open while I'm working. I recommend these to all people who enjoy crossword puzzles. Just find out which day (or days) of the week are right for you!

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: There are way too many tricky answers.
Review: This is the first NYT crossword book that I can truly say I have not enjoyed. Far too many of the puzzles have a quirky or tricky "theme", such as many answers having two or more letters in one box, or one half of the answers needing to be written in reverse. It's fun to come across a puzzle like this every now and then, but this book is full of them. There aren't any titles on the puzzles, which sometimes could include clues to the "twist" that the puzzles are going to take. I don't recommend this book unless you really like to be "fooled" in ways that don't really make sense, even when you look at the answers in the back.

Reviewer: Mona in Texas
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Fun, but frustrating
Review: I wanted a mental workout and I certainly got one. While this provided the stimulus I was wanting, it wasn't overwhelming, and I enjoyed it for the most part. My only gripe is the number of puzzles that employed the method of cramming multiple letter combinations into one square. No fair! Frustration is not the mental perk I was looking for. While I'm ready to go on to Friday puzzles, I just wonder how many of this type of puzzle there will be. I have a tendency to skip them, and then feel shorted for not doing them. I can't be the only person that feels this way, Mr. Shortz. Think about it!

Reviewer: I Love Weekends
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I recently became obsessed with NYT crosswords via the NYT Crossword app free trial. Doing crosswords on a phone is convenient, but it cramps up my hand, so rather than subscribe to the app I went and bought most of the books in this "Best of the Week" series.The Thursday crosswords are fantastic. The clues are of medium difficulty, but the puzzles themselves each have a unique theme or gimmick, often bending the rules of how a crossword puzzle is "supposed" to work. Patience and creative thinking are key here. When you figure out the trick, clues that originally didn't make sense will suddenly be clear to you. Tricks range from requiring entire words to be written in one square to having to *literally* think outside the grid. But they never come out of nowhere: they're hinted at in oblique but fair ways, and discovering them is therefore hugely satisfying (if occasionally groan-inducing). [EDIT: OK, I just did the "write half the answers backwards" crossword and I have to withdraw my assertion that all tricks come with hints. They *usually* do, though.]These aren't the most challenging NYT crosswords by a long shot, but they're the most playful, and possibly the most addictive. If you're a reasonably experienced crossword solver, you should definitely give them a try!

Reviewer: Steve Johnson
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: paper is fairly good quality.note: non USA english speakers will be at a slight disadvantage as the content is, understandably, USA centric. example “3 musketeers filling”. as a canadian, i have no idea what “3 musketeers “ is. well, it must be food but beyond that i’m stumped.note: there is some added challenge in some of these xwords. i mean another level of play you have to figure out. for example some words extend beyond the xword itself. there will be a clue to help us figure this out but speaking for myself, i prefer just a straight xword.note: not too much contemporary pop culture (rapper’s names etc) so suitable for geezers like me.

Reviewer: Al
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: these are not my definition of medium and if you’re not familiar with the NYT puzzles this should be considered difficult. after finding some of these impossible i switched the the NYT crossword app where they categorize Thursday as “tricky”.

Reviewer: Faida A.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: My husband loves it as it is very challenging

Reviewer: MSLSbo
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: As advertised. Binding folds nicely.