Jacob's review
Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players
by Stefan Fatsis
Jacob's review
Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players by Stefan Fatsis
Jacob's review
rating:
I'm really enjoying this book and I'm only half-way through! It's by a journalist who wanted to report on the world of competitive Scrabble, but got sucked into it himself. So it's half reporting, half memoir. He tells the stories about the characters (and I do mean characters) that he meets in this world, but he intersperses it with linguistic wordplay; trivia about Scrabble and words and wordplay; some of the amazing plays and games; the history of Scrabble, and games in general in America; issues of lexicography; the politics of everything from choosing word lists to holding tournaments to the fact that, unlike Chess, the game is owned by a corporation; but mostly lots and lots of great word play and wonderful trivia about language and Scrabble. Plus he injects some great quotes by famous people about "words" and "language". And the writing is great. And some of the players he meets are hilarious.
