Across the Universe explores the surprising cultural weight of the crossword puzzle. Natan Last dives into its history, influence, and the growing movement to make puzzles more inclusive and reflective of modern voices. The book balances entertaining anecdotes with thoughtful analysis, showing how crosswords are far from apolitical. With a fresh look at who creates them and who they serve, this is a must-read for fans of word games and cultural criticism alike. It’s both fun and thought-provoking.

3.25
I always say I love reading novels written by poets because you can just *tell* through their beautiful and lyrical and flowery writing. And in a similar (but maybe slightly less positive) vein, you can tell that this is written by someone who also writes crossword puzzles? lol
At risk of making myself just sound stupid, I do think the writing style and timeline of this was hard to follow. Writing about clever wordplay by using tons and tons of clever wordplay yourself was... a lot. Every sentence felt like a clue I needed to dissect and I felt like the really interesting points and stories were lost amid the efforts to make them sound really cool.
I obviously love language but this just felt overwritten. Still a fun and interesting read if you love crossword puzzles, but it did take a bit of work to get through (work that I sometimes just preferred to spend on actual puzzles and not confusing sentence structures).