Two Girls, One on Each Knee

Sep 30, 2024 5:40 PM

Author:Alan Connor

In the century since its birth, the crossword has evolved into the world's most popular intellectual pastime: a unique form of wordplay, the codes and conventions of which are open to anyone masochistic enough to get addicted. In Two Girls, One on Each Knee, Alan Connor celebrates the wit, ingenuity and frustration of setting and solving puzzles. From the beaches of D-Day to the imaginary worlds of three-dimensional crosswords, to the British school teachers and journalists who turned the form into the fiendish sport it is today, encompassing the most challenging clues, particular tricks, the world's greatest setters and famous solvers, PG Wodehouse and the torturers of the Spanish Inquisition, this is an ingenious book for lovers of this very particular form of wordplay.

Reviews

Alan Connor's charming, fascinating history . . . is as elegantly sprinkled with surprising gems as the most satisfying crossword . . . thoroughly, consistently entertaining . . . In a single, gloriously decipherable chapter he lays out with perfect clarity the entire range of rules and devices through which cryptic clues work their magic

—— Sunday Times

It is witty, charming, encyclopaedic and highly readable - and it can be read in any order. Take a chapter or a paragraph, a puzzle or a clue. In each the reader will find something to intrigue and delight.

—— Spectator

Two Girls is a lovingly crafted little book, from the table of contents - where chapter titles are hidden in a crossword designed by the great Araucaria - to the index, which skips from "I give up, see frustration" via "primness in American crosswords", to finish with "zookeepers, beleaguered".

—— The Times

A lovingly crafted little book . . . Connor's wry, good-natured tone and his commitment to the serious business of play make him the perfect guide to a great pastime as it approaches its 100th birthday

—— Daily Telegraph

Connor writes with great flair . . . it is nice to dip in and out of his entertaining essays

—— Church Times

An ideal stocking filler

—— Metro

The brilliant new book on crosswords that delivers fun galore whether you're a doer or a duffer

—— Mail on Sunday

There is something to entertain even the most infrequent dabbler

—— Financial Times

I am glad that attention should be continually drawn to copies of this book ... I am in full sympathy with the doctrine laid down by Sir Ernest Gowers

—— Sir Winston Churchill

A small literary jewel

—— Evening News

A delight, a classic of its kind

—— John o'London's Weekly

Great fun to read

—— Economist

Brilliant

—— New Statesman

A sweetly reasonable and wholly admirable guide

—— The Times

It will delight far wider circles than those to whom it is primarily addressed

—— Observer

Compelling

—— Clive Aslet , Country Life

A colourful treatment of a colourful life

—— Lady

Personal and affectionate tribute

—— Sally Morris , Daily Mail

Affectionate, familial tribute to this many-sided man.

—— The Catholic Herald

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