The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle - Anna Shechtman Audiobook

Written by Anna Shechtman
Read by Anna Shechtman
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: HarperAudio
Release date: March 5, 2024
Duration: 08:23:09

A renowned puzzle creator’s compulsively readable memoir and history of the crossword puzzle as an unexpected site of women’s work and feminist protest.
The indisputable “queen of crosswords,” Anna Shechtman published her first New York Times puzzle at age nineteen, and later, spearheaded the The New Yorker’s popular crossword section. Working with a medium often criticized as exclusionary, elitist, and out-of-touch, Anna is one of very few women in the field of puzzle making, where she strives to make the everyday diversion more diverse.

In this fascinating work—part memoir, part cultural analysis—she excavates the hidden history of the crossword and the overlooked women who have been central to its creation and evolution, from the “Crossword Craze” of the 1920s to the role of digital technology today. As she tells the story of her own experience in the CrossWorld, she analyzes the roles assigned to women in American culture, the boxes they’ve been allowed to fill, and the ways that they’ve used puzzles to negotiate the constraints and play of desire under patriarchy.

The result is an unforgettable and engrossing work of art, a loving and revealing homage to one of our most treasured, entertaining, and ultimately political pastimes.
PDF of the book is included, with crossword puzzles, of course.

“Author and narrator Anna Shechtman guides listeners through this combination feminist history of the crossword puzzle and personal memoir. As a young woman struggling with the compulsions of anorexia, Schectman discovered that crafting crossword puzzles distracted her from self-destructive behavior. At 18, she had her first puzzle published in THE NEW YORK TIMES. Schectman lovingly recounts the complicated histories of the forgotten icons of the crossword, such as Margaret Farrar. Shectman cautiously describes her own struggles, performing the passages on her life like someone who is focused on completing her own crossword. She used insightful inflections but occasionally sounds detached from her own history. The result is an audiobook that is deeply thoughtful, and occasionally heartrending.”—AudioFile