What drives more than 50 million Americans to solve crosswords
every week?

This question is at the heart of Dean Olsher’s debut book. As public radio listeners have come to expect from him over the last several decades, Olsher looked for the answer in surprising places.

Along the way, more questions arose. For example, do crosswords really prevent Alzheimer’s, or is the drive to fill in empty spaces more likely a mental illness than a cure? While “puzzle addiction“ is usually meant as a lighthearted metaphor, Olsher discovered that the term contains more than a nugget of truth.

From Square One features a cast of characters whose lives are deeply wrapped up in crosswords, including:

•   A professional crossword constructor who made puzzles in prison, where he spent half of his adult life
•   A highly skilled military cryptanalyst traumatized by her childhood as the daughter of a famous crossword maker
•   Stephen Sondheim, author not only of legendary musicals but also British-style crosswords that demand a love of verbal playfulness over knowledge of arcane trivia

And then there is the author himself, who grapples with ambivalence about his subject. On one page he praises the crossword as its own kind of poetry; on the next, he concludes it is a soul-numbing defense mechanism.

Olsher shares stories from crossword history and lore. Did you know that Vladimir Nabokov created what are believed to be the first Russian-language crosswords. Or that the British intelligence service used a crossword contest as a secret recruiting tool in the effort to crack German shipping codes during World War Two?

Filled with lively, original reporting, From Square One is entertaining and informative, humorous and poignant. For anyone curious about what it means to be human, Olsher’s story shines a light on the mind through the lens of the crossword.