Boatman – The Second 50
Posted on behalf of Boatman
I’ve just published my second collection of 50 puzzles from the Guardian – in fact, it’s 55 puzzles, as the book includes five bonus crosswords previously only available online, including the notorious Referendum Day puzzle that was able to predict the result of the UK’s vote over its membership of the European Union with complete confidence.
The book tells the story behind the development of each puzzle: how I thought of the theme, the ideas that didn’t make it into print and the odd connections that emerged afterwards. Expect talk of crosswords and coincidences, politics and particle physics. Solve extra clues and hear from solvers here and on theguardian.com who enjoyed the puzzles when they were first published.
Boatman – The Second 50 and its predecessor Boatman – The First 50 are available from all booksellers, or you can order signed copies from my online shop:
Giddying stuff, merrily exceeding the sum of its parts … Time with Boatman’s puzzles is time perfectly spent.
– Alan Connor
A Boatman crossword is like a theme park. Each daunting line is a rollercoaster that makes you throw your hands up and scream. He scares you witless. But you can’t wait to do it all over again.
– Henry Morris
I always feel a little bit smarter after I finish a Boatman puzzle, at least until I start the next one.
– Tim Dowling
Cracking crosswords – each puzzle a delightful daily workout for the brain and a welcome tonic for the soul.
– Brian Bilston
If you want a fiendish crossword, you want the best – which means you want Boatman, because he is the best.
– Gyles Brandreth
Thanks Boatman; it was exciting to receive both your books in the post just over a week ago, which was pretty prompt given the occasional vagaries of international mail. I really appreciated your personalised inscriptions and can’t wait to get into both volumes – a treat I’m really looking forward savouring when I’m not so busy. I find the whole craft of setting fascinating, and so I look forward to doing each puzzle and then reading your backstory. There will be ones I’ve done before but that will be enjoyable in itself to see if they ring any bells, as I’ll probably have forgotten many of the component parts of those solves along the way. Congratulations on bringing the Second 50 book to fruition – such a great idea to do these compilations in the first place, and very helpful to those who sadly can’t attend your masterclasses.
Another top class collection of puzzles from
Boatman which provides a wealth of information about his way of working, the challenge of grid setting and the reception which his puzzles achieved on this website. He is a brave man to read these blogs but argues his case successfully where he chooses to include critical comments from bloggers.
The very nature of Boatman’s compiling style means that he concentrates on using many of the “ugly” Guardian grids many of which have black squares on odd”numbered rows and columns..
Along with the “First 50” collection Boatman has established himself high up amongst crossword writers. These two books deserve to be classics. No other compiler has written about or presented crosswords in this way
I await the Third 50 eagerly,
(For a more detailed review, please see my Musings in the August edition of 1 Across magazine.)