Simon & Schuster Super Crossword Puzzle Book #11 Paperback – May 1, 2001

Very challenging for the cross word puzzle fanatic!

I always enjoy the puzzle books from this company. The squares are compact and they are large with lots of clues. Not too hard, not too easy.

It has lots of challenging puzzles which is what I like. The pages can be removed so the puzzles don't have to be done in the book.There are enough puzzles to keep you busy for hours.

These puzzles are standard difficulty level for NYT type puzzles. You run into some familiar good constructors with some of the puzzles, such as Jorgenson, Milhauser, and Osborn. The paper is nice to work on and the perforations make tearing out each page easy. Obviously, the quantity of puzzles (225) is nice, too.I wasn't expecting a difficulty level equal to the hardest New York Times Sunday puzzles of today. I rarely have trouble with solving any crossword puzzle, but I'm about halfway through the book, and I do have a few comments. For people like me, who don't expect to be really challenged but do want time-consuming at least: Many of the puzzles are quite short--like daily size. Many of these are quite easy, with simple grids. Naturally, this means running through puzzles very rapidly. With harder puzzles, almost 100% of the difficulty is due to obscure proper names--either people or places. In some cases, it is the result of rare vocabulary words. Themes are not particularly unusual. Clues are not often creative or difficult. Often, the clue is simply a synonym of the answer. And when I hit a puzzle in which the same answer was used twice, I admit I was irritated by the apparent sloppiness.OK, complaints out of the way, the actual Sunday size puzzles aren't bad. (Although a few are in extremely tiny type.) Even when the difficulty lies with obscure geography or, say, a bunch of opera people you never heard of, it is fun to challenge yourself with them. So far, I'd say I've enjoyed about half the puzzles, so given the number available, that's pretty good.

Gift for my 82 year old Aunt. She likes medium- difficult puzzles and these are perfect. Good price and value.

Pages weren't perforated

My wife loves these. Great price. Arrived in time for her birthday.

This series of crosswords are easy to read, and easy to use. The perforated pages are a nice feature and you can easily discard of the finished puzzles without doing any damage to the binding. The puzzles get progressively harder and keep you going with some of the theme puzzles mixed in. I would recommend both Simon & Schuster crossword book series to the avid crossword puzzle junkie in your family.