National Observer Book of Crosswords

Although it may not have the cachet of the New York Times, the National Oberver Book of Crosswords are consistently challenging. I was pleasantly surprised at their high quality and would highly recommend them for the crossword enthusiast!

This is for anyone who likes a crossword challenge. I have subscribed for over ten years.

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If you like themed puzzles on the harder side of the street, you will adore these. I love harder puzzles with themes and these are some of the best I have ever done. If you don't know, you should check out what the US version of the National Observer was. It was an actual publication created by the man who started the The Wall Street Journal and was in existence from 1962 to 1977. I would love to find a copy in some library on microfiche. But, I digress.

There are a total of 70 crosswords in each issue and from puzzle 31-70, the puzzles are the larger, Sunday-type version. The man who edits the publication, Mr. Preston, seems to take great care because the selections are varied, delightful and enjoyable. I also like the fact that Kappa Publishing takes great care to eliminate any errors even in the headers and footers. I'm sure he has a lot of help in doing this, too. But, it's obvious, that the company cares about every detail.

The books are digest-size so you could carry in your backpack, purse or other bag, which is cool for the train or something. Something I appreciate, too, is the fact that the books do not crumble after a lot of abuse in terms of falling apart from the spine. The spine is pliable because unlike any crossword magazines I've ever worked, you can open a page, move it around a bit and the book lays flat. To me, that's a great asset. The paper is akin to a slightly heavier newspaper, so your pencil or pen glides quite smoothly. I use erasable ink pens for my crosswords and the paper is awesome with these.

There's not much of a discount here at Amazon for a subscription, so frankly I would plunk down the extra bucks to start getting the subscription faster. It's ridiculous to wait months when you have paid for it. Mail the coupon inside one of the books or just go to the Kappa company website and order online directly.

I hope everyone enjoys solving these crosswords!

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I can rarely complete one of these, but I love the challenge. It is a good mix of fairly easy, fairly difficult, and totally impossible puzzles.

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I have been a fan of National Observer crossword puzzles for years. The puzzles range from fairly easy to challenging. However, over the past couple years I have noticed a lot of errors in the publication and think that if there is one place there should be zero errors, it is in a crossword puzzle book. This drives me crazy. I have been tempted to call and apply for the job of proofreader! Another complaint I have is that too many of the puzzles are becoming "cutesy". They are not straight crossword puzzles but puzzles that, say, require you to leave out certain letters, or insert Roman numerals for letters,or have some other sort of twist. I realize that some people may enjoy this, but I just want the straight crosswords. Also, and this probably isn't the case in fact, but sometimes I get the feeling the puzzles must be fairly old, because many of the answers probably would completely elude anyone under the age of forty, which, unfortunately, I am not. Despite these flaws, this is still the best crossword puzzle publication on the market. I am giving it only four stars because of the first two issues addressed above.

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