The New York Times Super Saturday Crosswords: The Hardest Crossword of the Week

by The New York Times, Will Shortz (Editor)

The Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle is the most challenging puzzle of the week, which is why it has gained such an eager following. The most serious solvers know that actually finishing the puzzle is no small feat. Collected for the first time in a convenient and portable book form, Super Saturday has 75 puzzles sure to test not only knowledge but patience as well.

96 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2000

About the author

The New York Times is a daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed internationally. Founded in 1851, the newspaper has won 112 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization. Its website receives 30 million unique visitors per month.

Reviews

[Andrew Updegrove]

If you do the NY Times crossword puzzle on a daily basis and enjoy a real challenge, you'll likely be disappointed with this book, but happy to realize how much better the hardest puzzles have become over the past twenty years. Those in this book ran between 1993 and 1995, and for starters, in difficulty they're more like today's Thursday puzzles than Saturday's more enjoyable challenges.

The clues also aren't as clever, and sometimes the difficulty arises simply from gratuitous ellipticalism in the clues rather than from the type of wit that makes you smile when, finally, after picking the puzzle up for the third time, you finally "get" that last hard clue or two.

The lesson therefore seems to be clear: if you want to pick up a few puzzle books to get you through the early part of the week when the puzzle isn't hard enough to bother, be sure to buy the most recent book available consistent with your ability to forget the puzzles you've already done.

At least there are a few benefits to aging, and thanks be for that.