The Art of Puzzling
A collection of Atlantic writing on the joy and frustration of the quest
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
I’ll admit right off the bat that I’m not much of a puzzler. Growing up, I always preferred the quick satisfaction of a book or a movie to the more frustrating challenge lurking in the Sunday paper. But over the past few years, as I spent time with our crossword-puzzle editor Caleb Madison’s essays about the art of puzzling, I’ve started to understand the joy of the quest. Take, for example, his recent description of the tradition of a Sunday print puzzle:
The back page of a print magazine is consecrated space for a puzzle: one final flourish, like the cherry on a sundae or the outro of a power ballad. Even in our age of ephemerality, the essential experience of the crossword, to me, remains sitting around the breakfast table with loved ones and the Sunday New York Times Magazine, shouting answers, arguing, passing the puzzle around, pooling knowledge to forge ahead and collectively rise to the intellectual challenge.
As of this summer, The Atlantic has added its own print puzzle to the mix: Caleb’s Inferno, which starts off easy but becomes devilishly difficult as you work your way down. Crossword puzzles speak for themselves. But writing and talking about puzzles can add yet another layer to the rich texture embedded in the grid. Today’s newsletter explores some of our best writing about puzzle-making and puzzle-solving.
On Puzzling
The Puzzle That Will Outlast the World
By A. J. Jacobs
One move down, 1,298,074,214,633,706,907,132,624,082,305,022 to go.
A Slow Descent Into Devilish Difficulty
By Caleb Madison
Our new print crossword puzzle puts a fresh narrative spin on a classic.
Six Books That Feel Like Puzzles
By Ilana Masad
These titles represent an eclectic mix of various styles and moods, but any one of them will be exactly right if you want a brainteaser.
Still Curious?
- Tips from our crossword pro: Don’t necessarily start at 1-Across.
- “I figured out Wordle’s secret”: The game works for four reasons, Ian Bogost writes.
Other Diversions
P.S.
In 2013, our editor Becca Rosen spoke with Deb Allen, the writer of what was then the official crossword blog of The New York Times. Their conversation is a fascinating view into the years when technology was starting to reshape the world of crosswords.
— Isabel
