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These are my recommendations for the crossworder's bookshelf. Click the Amazon for more information or to purchase on-line. Any purchase, including CDs and DVDs, from these links earns a commission for the Crossword Centre. |
| Chambers English Dictionary is the essential crossword dictionary because of its huge content and its listing of obsolete and obscure words. Most of the great English crossword setters use the current edition as their source; and some, like Azed, will inform the solver if there is a word which can only be found in an alternative dictionary. The latest edition was published on 16 September 2003. | amazon.com |
| Chambers Crossword Dictionary contains over 275,000 words from the Chambers Dictionary, grouped by meaning and sorted by length. It also has over 15,000 proper names and encyclopedic terms, places and people. With introductions by Don Manley and Azed, who also acted as consultants on the project, this book will certainly make solving easier. | amazon.com |
| The Crossword Solver's Dictionary by Anne R Bradford is, in my opinion, the best of the crossword dictionaries. A talented Ximenean, she has analysed every puzzle over 40 years to come up with the most extensive and useful handbook. This is my vade-mecum and has frequently got me out of a tough spot in finding an obscure word. This is the latest 2005 edition. | |
| Bradford's Crossword Lists is the ideal companion to the Dictionary. Extensive word lists, listed by category and by word-length. | amazon.com |
| Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose (8): The Puzzling Memoir of a Man in Love
with Words Sandy Balfour's amusing travelogue and his growing love of crosswords. |
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| The New York Times Monday Through Friday Easy to Tough Crossword Puzzles Edited by Will Shortz this is one of the best of the US collections. | amazon.com |
| The Spectator Book of Crosswords is one of the most interesting of current crossword collections. It includes100 puzzles from the complete cycle, going back to puzzle 1 by Jac, and coming bang up to date with some puzzles which appeared only early in 2000. The work of all six principal compilers over the almost 30 years' history of the puzzle is included in the book. | amazon.com |
| Bradford's Crossword Key Dictionary provides listings of over 75,000 words and expressions used as answers to crosswords. These are arranged according to the number of letters used in the word and listed alphabetically. This is another fine aid by Anne Bradford. | amazon.com |
| The Crossword Proper Name Finder is a new reference guide for finding proper names of actors, writers, musicians, politicians, award-winners and other celebrities; it includes over 73,000 names, titles, and award recipients for cross-reference. | amazon.com |
| Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L Sayers contains the classic crossword story - The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will. Many thanks to Henry Casson for pointing out this gem. | amazon.com |
| The Crossword Murder by Nero Blanc is the latest in the line of crossword-based detective novels and you ought to enjoy solving the clues to the murder. An interactive mystery with six crossword puzzles. | amazon.com |
| Last Bus to Woodstock by Colin Dexter has references to the best Ximenean clue-writers, Morse, Lewis , Crowther (Azed) and even Chalkley (Apex). | amazon.com |
| For American cryptic crosswords the best advice is given in the Random House Guide to Cryptic Crosswords. This helps the reader to solve and to compose tricky puzzles and includes 65 puzzles by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon. This couple have maintained the highest standards in originality and setting and they continue to publish in the Atlantic Monthly. | amazon.com |
| The Random House Puzzlemaker's Handbook by Mel Rosen and Stan Kurzban, published by Times Books in 1995 is an excellent guide to creating and solving cryptics, acrostics and a wide variety of puzzles. | amazon.com |
| For beginners who want to master the art of solving the cryptic crossword, Crossword Puzzles for Dummies is an amusing and instructive way to learn. | amazon.com |
| I also recommend How to do the "Times" Crossword This tutor by Brian Greer, once crossword editor at the Times, explains how to finish the puzzle while your breakfast egg is boiling! | amazon.com |
| For American cryptics I can recommend Will Shortz's Tournament Crosswords, a collection of puzzles from the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. More accessible are the puzzles of Thomas Joseph. His collection 100 Clever Crosswords is well worth adding to your collection. | amazon.com |
| Another good US collection is The New York Times Toughest Crosswords, 100 challenging posers edited by Eugene T Maleska | amazon.com |
| The Book of Latin Crosswords by Peter Jones & David J. Dare-Plumpton is now published and with 50 puzzles and a Latin vocabulary it must be an essential item on the crossworder's bookshelf. Moreover, the witty clues are very amusing. Clues are in English but the answers are in Latin. | amazon.com |
| Of these the most comprehensive Reference Books, and a mine of obscure information, is Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. If you want to know the Nine Muses or the Seven Heavens then you will find all you need to know here. Useful lists, such as famous horses or swords in myth and history, in themselves, are interesting reading. | amazon.com |
| Roget's Thesaurus is an easy way to expand your word-power. Words are divided into categories and grouped according to themes. A powerful tool for searching for synonyms. | amazon.com |
| If you are stuck for a literary source, the name of a character, a play or a novel you could try Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia by William Rose Benet. | amazon.com |
| My own favourite is Everyman's Dictionary of Fictional Characters. Its name speaks for itself. | amazon.com |
| A good dictionary of quotations should be on every solver's bookshelf. I can recommend the 21st Century Dictionary of Quotations | amazon.com |
| The classic source for British puzzles is the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. This is the big one! | amazon.com |
| The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations is more than adequate for finding quotations and is excellent value. | amazon.com |
| The most interesting dictionary for your collection is The Devils Dictionary by Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce. Of little use in solving a crossword puzzle but a delight in every entry. | amazon.com |