Crossword Consumer

Friday and Saturday New York Times puzzles were toughies ... Friday's more difficult than Saturday's, at least for me. In fact, I was rather pleased to have filled in quite a bit of Saturday's puzzle before giving up with a sigh.

But I was in a bit of a funk. I wanted something I could solve, and I wanted it now. I went out for a copy of the Daily News, but those puzzles didn't do it for me, either.

It's at times like this that I really, truly miss the puzzles that Peter Gordon had edited for The New York Sun. Unfortunately, The Sun, a daily newspaper that ran for a few years, has recently ceased publication, although Peter Gordon still provides puzzles available by subscription over at cruciverb.com. And, I remembered, puzzles from the paper -- most of which would be new to me, as I so often was unable to find The Sun itself for sale anywhere -- are collected in wirebound book format ...

So off I went to the Barnes & Nobel at Union Square and found myself standing before a vast array of puzzle publications, by far the majority of them carrying The New York Times and/or Will Shortz names. But there were LA Times puzzle books as well, and, yes, the Sun crossword books I was seeking. I restrained myself from buying up a boxcar load of 'em. I settled on the latest of the Sun books (#17), then spotted 102 Cryptic Crosswords by Fraser Simpson.

102 Cryptic Crosswords is a follow-up to 101 Cryptic Crosswords, which were small cryptics edited by Fraser Simpson and published in The New Yorker. How I loved those, and still much miss them since The New Yorker stopped including them in the magazine. They feature small grids, only 8x10, and provide a good, solvable challenge, unlike the Harper's cryptics with their involved additional rules to wade through (for me, the cryptic challenge itself is sufficient; trying to figure out which answers are entered in some odd fashion or other, have dropped letters, to say nothing of perhaps being unclued, renders the solving not only less than fun but impossible). The New Yorker cryptics were always a delight, and I saw these were similar, these apparently written by Fraser Simpson rather than written by others and edited by him, so I added that to my purchase.

On my way to the checkout counter, I spotted a small "crossword game" -- the size of a gift card, which the game is meant to carry with it -- and stopped to investigate. The box was sealed so I couldn't really give it a good look, but instructions on the box indicated that it was a game intended for 2 and that it included small magnets that were dangerous if accidentally swallowed. The price was $9.95, and I considered it, but I don't really have anyone I could play the game with, and I wasn't going to be purchasing a gift card, so I put it back.

Once home, I treated myself to an easy solve from the Sun book and took a pleasant dive into the cryptics book. Much better. Now I'm off to see what awaits in the Sunday Times.