Long-Quote Crostics, Volume 1

I am an avid solver of Acrostic puzzles and this Slusky book is one of the best collections I've come across(tic). I would place it above the NY Times and just below the Middleton (Simon&Schuster) series in terms of quality of construction and level of difficulty. While most of these puzzles are not super difficult for experienced acrostic lovers, some are certainly challenging enough to be enjoyed, and the long-quotes always provide a good workout. The quotes are good, well selected, and varied. Extra stars for the format and print production of the book. This is the best bound book I have seen to date. You can easily flip through the puzzles because of the spiral binding, which means you don't have to fight with a glued down binding. There are no annoying smudges when erasers are applied. The clues and puzzles are legible and well-placed (no easy task given the length of some of them). I highly, highly recommend.

I've been doing crostic puzzles for more than 45 years now, so I've been around the block and have familiarity with almost, if not all, of the various puzzle masters who've created these puzzles for my intellectual stimulation and enjoyment over the years (particularly these two greats, Thomas H. Middleton and Charles A. Duerr).My biggest disappointments when doing these type of puzzles is usually, "Darn, I'm finished already," and/or "This was too stupidly easy." Happily that is not the case with this Long-Quote Crostics volume that I recently purchased. The pleasure and thrill of completing the puzzle now lasts twice as long, while the degree of difficulty is just the right amount so as to stimulate my brain without overwhelming it.I am thus far finding the puzzles to be challenging without being intimidating, overly daunting or impossible to complete. The quotations are interesting and entertaining.I was surprised to read the one-star review about this book. Yes, the type is small, and yes, everything on the page is somewhat close together for purposes of keeping it all contained to one page. However, I did not find this to be troublesome or problematic, and I am someone who usually has great difficulty reading too small type, which was not the case for me with this book. Additionally, and in its further favor is the fact that the book is bound with spiral type wiring so as to make it wonderfully easy to work on the left-hand back side pages which are usually so difficult to fully open so as to write down the answers.My only criticism thus far is the fact that the author is somewhat inconsistent when it comes to providing the clues. The main instance I've thus far dealt with was when he used the word “cola” as part of a long clue. Once I had completed the puzzle it turned out that the answer to the “cola” portion of the clue was an acronym for the word “cola”, in which case he should have had it appear within the clue section as “cola” with all capital letters. But this is not by any means anything significantly terrible. Certainly not terrible enough to warrant a low review.Overall I am quite happy with this purchase and eagerly look forward to future long-quote editions!

I'm glad to see anyone publishing double crostics, but these were disappointing. They were too easy, and not particularly entertaining. I wouldn't say these are trivial, but they are certainly easier than the New York Times puzzles, and not to be compared to those of the immortal Charles A, Duerr. I'm not claiming to be a champion solver, but none of these puzzles had me flummoxed for any length of time. With a book of 50 Charles A Duerr puzzles, I feel proud of myself if I manage to do them all, even if two or three of them took me several days. With perhaps half a dozen exceptions, the clues in the puzzles aren't at all clever; they're just straightforward definitions. There is no "aha" moment when you finally figure one of them out.Also, the clues aren't carefully edited. In some cases, the parenthetical number of words is omitted, and some of the clues seem to be wrong. I wish I had saved some examples. One howler I remember had, for the name of the strait at the southern entrance to New York Bay, the answer "Verrazano Narrows." The name of the bridge over the strait is the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The name of the strait is The Narrows. (Of course, one of the quotations seems to indicate that the bridge connects Brooklyn and Manhattan; maybe that one goes over the Verrazano Narrows.)Having said all this, I would probably buy a second volume if one becomes available. It's hard to find high-quality double crostics any more, and these are acceptable. I think the book really rates three stars, but I'm giving it a fourth just because it's a book of double crostics.

This is a great puzzle book. It is very challenging. (I confess to conferring with Prof. Google sometimes to get started.) But the long quotations are much more interesting than the short quotes that are typical of this kind of puzzle. And the selections cover all types of material: history, litereature, art, etc.My only disappointment was finding that although this book is titled Vol 1 -- there is no Vol. 2.I was on the 49th of 50 when I decided it was time to order Vol 2. I found nothing in Amazon or any references to such a book in a Google search. Mr. Slusky is a patent attorney and he is apparently doing better practicing law than he is at writing puzzles. Who would have ever guessed?In a few words: It's a great puzzle book but one of a kind. Relish it as you work through it.