This week features pieces from Sabrina Imbler, Natan Last, Lulu Miller and John Megahan, Casey Cep, and David Grimm.
puzzles
Posted inEditor's Pick
Can Crosswords Be More Inclusive?
“The puzzles spread from the United States across the globe, but the American crossword today doesn’t always reflect the linguistic changes that immigration brings.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Three Amateurs Solved the Zodiac Killer’s ‘340’ Cipher
In 1969, the Zodiac Killer sent an encoded note to the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2020, someone finally cracked the code. And that someone was three people, with zero cryptography experience, who had met in an online true-crime forum. Kathryn Miles tells you how, and the result is a must for any puzzle fan. Most experts, […]
Posted inStory
The Cabin on the Mountain
“Sometimes, the mechanism of the answer is something ludicrously complex, a thing that must be pieced out bit by bit. Other times, the solution requires retooling your perspective.”
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Story
For the Love of Wordle: A Reading List on Puzzles and Games
Seven longreads on the communal pastime of puzzles, games, and crosswords.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Surprisingly Messy Culture Wars Within The New York Times Crossword Puzzle
“While the crossword remains a word game mainstay, what’s appropriate has changed with the times.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Escaping Into the Crossword Puzzle
“Part of the appeal of a young woman crossword constructor is that she is focussing her intelligence on a frivolity; she is making her smarts unthreatening and benign. Of course, nothing about my story, neither its reflection of cultural misogyny nor its origins in my willful self-destruction, is benign. Surely this is not what the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Jerry and Marge Gamed the Lottery
All they did was bet big. And they won, time and again.