The Telegraph: Ultimate General Knowledge Crosswords 1 (The Telegraph Puzzle Books)

On a Sunday morning whilst eating toast and being chilled we play the quick crossword in the Telegraph. The wife likes doing them and therefore so do it! Anyway, I saw this book and bought it for a xmas present for her. Looking forward to a surfeit of brownie points... However, be warned, these aren't the same as the quick crosswords we know and love. They are (or certainly seem) to be quite a bit more fiendish. Which in fairness probably says more about us than the book and the crosswords therein, but there go my brownie points! :o)

It is difficult to pitch crosswords. Too hard, too easy, you can't win if you are a compiler. This one, though, takes obscure to new levels. My partner and I are experienced and enthusastic GK crossword fans but we did not complete a single one of these. The blurb on the cover makes it quite clear that there are many very obscure clues and lots of "alternative" spellings but you don't see this on Amazon, of course. The alternative spellings are often quite often absurd and I don't believe some of them exist at all. You buy this at your peril. I genuinely believe they are almost uncomplete-able. I can't say we didn't enjoy them. We enjoy a challenge and getting 95% of a crossword felt like an achievement. Ultimately, though, frustration was the main emotion as we realised that many of the clues were just ridiculous. Many crossword compilers forget that their job is to entertain, not to show off their erudition. This one goes too far. For masokists only (alternative spelling).

I didn’t like the excessive use of American terms as the answers, as it is a telegraph product I found so many references to US terminology that I didn’t understand.

I bought this as I love quizzes and crosswords, I'm generally not bad at them either? Some enjoyable and some frustrating due to the difficulty and obscurity of some answers? A reasonable knowledge of the Classics and "Americanisms" would be useful, with a few cryptic and standard crossword clues thrown in for good measure. If you're able to complete more than half of these, without at least checking the spellings. Then you're a better man than me! Good luck?

These small Daily Telegraph General Knowledge X-word books are excellent value. The questions are agreeably varied from the very straightforward to notably more demanding ones. The punctilious attention to detail common to all X-word puzzles once, is, alas, no longer to be relied upon, but there are few errors here. A great deal of pleasure for a very modest investment.

Hours and hours of pleasure. Plus the answers are all in a section at the back so you can tear them out and hide them so you aren't tempted to cheat! Great value for money.

Delighted with my purchase. A wide variety of questions which will keep me busy. Will definitely buy more.

Very good as usual but I forgot to check the size of the format- it's large paperback size and not a suited to a short sighted reader- they do a larger format so check which one you want- always an excellent set of puzzles.