The Times How to Crack Cryptic Crosswords

by Tim Moorey

This easy guide demonstrates that anyone who enjoys words and word play can learn to solve a cryptic crossword clue. With clear pictorially presented explanations for many clues, you can revel in the deep satisfaction that comes from finishing cryptic crossword puzzles. Designed to apply to the solving of any cryptic crossword, this book is designed to guide the cryptic crossword beginner to an enriched solving experience.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, Puzzles

232 pages, Paperback

First published April 10, 2014

Reviews

[Uvrón]

(new years resolution complete i diiid it it was so hard)

Very good intro to the wordplay structures of cryptic crosswords. Does not acknowledge that anyone outside the UK might pick up this hobby, so some of the practice clues and puzzles still require you to know fables about Sir Francis Drake or slang that references a London neighborhood. But I guess almost all cryptics have this puzzle and there's not much way to prepare for it!

If you enjoy the wordplay but don't want to struggle through a whole puzzle, the Minute Cryptic app has a new clue every day.

[carmen!]

i swear this is fun

[Samantha Perry]

One of my goals for 2024 was to learn how to do cryptic crosswords. I’m on my way 10 and a half months later 🥰

[Marie]

Before I started reading this, I was slowly working through the Guardian’s Quick Cryptic crosswords. I can now usually do the Quiptic without too much bother, and have a stab at the full Cryptic too.

[Gumbo Ya-ya]

Moorey's book is a concise and readable introduction to, and overview of, solving cryptic crosswords (hereafter I shall refer to them simply as crosswords), which does a great job of balancing the big picture with the minutiae. At the time I picked this up, I had already been a (casual) crossword enthusiast for a couple of years and had previously consulted many varied resources on solving crosswords, but always piecemeal; this was my first go at a work this thorough and logically organised.
In How to Crack Cryptic Crosswords, Moorey provides in depth explanations with copious examples; a splash of history and trivia; a lot of practice, both of individual clues and whole crosswords; and a solid body of reference material that I expect I will continue to use as I solve crosswords in the future.
There are perhaps two places where i feel he could have done better:
1. I would have liked to see some gradation in the help provided for the practice clues and crossword. Each one has a solution page which highlights the separation of the clue into definition and wordplay, and notes the kind of clue (anagram, cryptic definition, etc). I would have found it helpful to have a second page that provided initial tips, such as just providing the clue type, so one could get a bit of help when stumped, without immediately jumping to the answer.
2. The index is rather lack-lustre and a more thorough concordance structure would make the book more useful as a continued reference work.

[Mike]

This is about the sixth or seventh 'how to solve crosswords' guide I've read over the past thirty years and I'm still no better at solving cryptics than I was before I read any of them.

This one is entertaining and witty and has a number of practice clues and 24 sample crosswords to solve.

Great value for money.

[Laura (Reading is a Doing Word)]

I love puzzles and do the NYT and LinkedIn puzzles online every day. However, I have never mastered the art of the cryptic crossword - my brain just doesn't seem to work in the necessary way....or so I thought!

While on holiday with a friend recently, we both enjoyed doing our puzzles every day and comparing answers etc and my friend informed me she was trying to learn how to do cryptic crosswords. It had honestly never occurred to me that this was a skill you could learn - but why not! Inspired by her efforts I borrowed this book from the library.

It breaks the clues down into their different types - anagrams, hidden words, homophones etc and gives examples of indicator words and worked through solutions. I'll admit that it may have been a bit high brow for me but it did give a good insight into what to look for within a clue.

I combined this book with the www.mincryptic.com website tutorial and daily clue and also the lovattspuzzles.com daily cryptic crossword, and perhaps I'm on my way to beginning to understand these clever puzzles!

[Mex]

OK, but far better info can be found elsewhere. The main problem with this book is that the sample clues given, although plentiful, and really poorly explained. Considering the book is expressly for teaching how to solve cryptic puzzles, I think a little more effort should have gone into explaining them in full rather than just the part relevant to the specific section it is in.

[Rae]

Discovered cryptics only recently after a lifetime of solving NYTBR puzzles. This is a useful guidebook and I'll be consulting it over and over.

[Miss P Campbell]

A good book it not a quick fix for beginners but it is a good step in the right direction - have a go and do a few pages at a time.

[Albert Polita]

useful

[Eila Jameson-Avey]

I found this informative and certainly learned a lot about how to solve cryptic crosswords. Having the answers in the back of the book was too tempting, though.

[Alan Draycott]

Handy, 2nd hand car without a primed doubt, at capacity (6)

[Richard Thompson]

I wanted to include a book about cryptic crosswords in the the Bump Memorial Library. A friend, at one point, recommended a novel — THE GIRL IN CRIMSON ROSE — but it wasn't very good and didn't give the reader any sense of how cryptic crosswords work or why they are fun to work.

This "how-to" does a good job of laying out the conventions and practices with good example and clear analyses of how clues were constructed. That said, once we got to the "Finer Points" section of the book we were still often mystified.

This book was #32 on our 2016 Read-aloud List.

[Craig]

Could be a bit clearer, but generally useful.

P.s. This book is published by The Times but applies equally to most cryptic crossword setters.