Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players [Paperback]

Scrabble may be truly called America's game. But for every group of living-room players there is someone who is at one with the board. In Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis introduces readers to those few, exploring the underground world of colorful characters for which the Scrabble game is life-playing competitively in tournaments across the country. It is also the story of how the Scrabble game was invented by an unemployed architect during the Great Depression and how it has grown into the hugely successful, challenging, and beloved game it is today. Along the way, Fatsis chronicles his own obsession with the game and his development as a player from novice to expert. More than a book about hardcore Scrabble players, Word Freak is also an examination of notions of brilliance, memory, language, competition, and the mind that celebrates the uncanny creative powers in us all.

A Book Sense 76 pick.

Author's Note
1. The Park
2. The Best
3. Unrated
4. 1005
5. Edley
6. 1191
7. Alfred
8. G.I. Joel
9. 1291
10. The Words
11. Matt
12. The Owners
13. 1461
14. Lester
15. The Club
16. The World
17. The Worlds
18. 1416
19. 1501
20. 1574
21. 1601
22. 1697
Epilogue
Appendix
Sources
Acknowledgments An engrossing, inside look at the strange and rareified world of competitive Scrabble. It's a pleasure to experience vicariously a level of play that I'll never achieve! —Will Shortz, New York Times crossword editor and puzzle master of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday
Fatsis . . . writes with affectionate zeal about the game and the fraternity of brilliant, lonely, and otherwise dysfunctional oddballs it attracts. —