E-Books
by Judith Seretto
edited by Mike Shenk
April 30, 2010

As of this posting, full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page. Therefore, take these answers with requisite grain of salt.

Theme: Literature with an E
FEATHERS AND SONS {21A Book about characters like Icarus?} - Ivan Turgenev

WEAR AND PEACE {31A Book about concerns of an army tank maintainer?} - Leo Tolstoy

HEARD TIMES {41A Book about a newspaper's audio version?} - Charles Dickens

THE LEAST OF THE MOHICANS {63A Book about a tribe's smallest member?} - James Fenimore Cooper. Diary of a Crossword Fiend has a point, “How come we never just call him Cooper?” Compare JFC to the rest of these authors, although Seuss is usually Dr.

RABBIT RUNE {83A Book about a symbol found on a prehistoric burrow wall?} - John Updike

AS I LAY DYEING {93A Book about a relaxed beautician?} - William Faulkner

THE CAT IN THE HEAT {107A Book about a pet basking in sunlight?} - Dr. Seuss


Word of the Week: ISOGRAMS
{11D Words with no repeated letters}
Pursuing this intriguing concept led me to
Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics
Making the Alphabet Dance by Ross Eckler
Language on Vacation: An Olio of Orthographical Oddities by Dmitri Borgmann
How can I go so quickly from complete ignorance to I must have this?

Recreational linguistics, also called logology, is the study of words, particularly letter patterns. Logology can also refer to the study of corporate logos, which are all about the visuals. Logos also has a biblical application that is above my pay grade. Therefore logo can be text, graphics, or content. English is weird.


News To Me: 6
ENVOI {33D Poetic summary} - related to a diplomatic envoy because the final words are sending the poem out into the world. So says the OED.

PATEN {54D Eucharist plate}

HAVER {65D June of “Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!”}

MARNI {73D Dubbing legend Nixon} - “Miss Nixon is the singing voice of Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn in the Motion Pictures and on the Soundtracks of The King and I, An Affair to Remember, West Side Story, and My Fair Lady.” Legend indeed.

HUG {109D Bear's offering} - for any other reason than bearhug? Given the venue, a stock tip? I recently learned about the bear subculture from Logo TV. Forget heaven & earth, there are more things in my immediate neighborhood than are dreamt of in my philosophy. BTW – and yet another use of logo.

EMO {110D Dashboard Confessional's music} - What the heck *is* emo anyway?


Admissions of Defeat: 1 or 2...
...depending how you count. Took flyers on a nest of 5 squares involving 5 words. Got 4 of the squares and 3 of the words.

Correctly guessed
??T?R {68A Gunpowder ingredient} - NITER, after giving up on wedging in peTER, as in salt-.
PAT?N {54D} – PATEN, as above
CA?N? {60D “Deathtrap” co-star} – CAINE, as in Michael. Particularly difficult as I kept reading Death Wish.

Missed the intersecting D
O??R {75A German border river} & E?I? {64D Writer Blyton} - ODER & ENID not OsER & ENIs. A reasonable guess, if wrong, no?


ACPT Countdown Clock: 321 days
Friday, April 30, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.


Added later.
Constructor's Corner: Judith Seretto
"When I came up with the idea for an e-books puzzle, my first thought was prefixing titles with an E to make new titles. After a bit of work on this idea with no good examples, I realized I had to be a bit more flexible.

Here are a few of the titles I came up with that didn't fit into the finished puzzle: THE RED PEONY; THE GRAPES OF WREATH; INVISIBLE MEAN; and the very questionable THE GOLDEN BOWEL."

Thank you Ms. Seretto.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan