Across the Universe

An entertaining and eye-opening look at the history of the crossword, who constructs them, and why crosswords matter as both a reflection of and influence on our culture

From Wordle to Spelling Bee, we live in a time of word game mania. Crosswords in particular gained renewed popularity during the Covid-19 lockdown, when games became another kind of refuge. Today, 36 million Americans solve crosswords once a week or more, and nearly 23 million solve them daily. Yet, as longtime New Yorker crossword contributor Natan Last will tell you, the seemingly apolitical puzzle has never been more controversial—or more interesting.

A surprisingly ubiquitous influence in the worlds of art, literature, and technology, as Last demonstrates, the puzzle and its most popular purveyors—including publications such as The New York Times, still the gold standard for word games—have in recent years been challenged for the way they prioritize certain cultures and perspectives as the norm, demoting others to obscurity. At the same time, the crossword has never been more democratic. A larger, younger, more tech-savvy, and solidaristic group of people have fallen in love with puzzle solving, ushering in a more inclusive community of constructors, challenging the very idea of what “normal” actually means.