Rating: 
Summary: Quirky, funny, interesting- a fun read!
Review: This book by Stefan Fatsis contains the drama, excitement and heartbreak that one expects from a well-written sports book. Of course, this is not a sports book but rather a book about SCRABBLE- the game and the world's best players. Fatsis becomes a part of the action and captures his obsession to become an expert player perfectly. He starts out by gently mocking the players but by the end he is including himself as one of the word-studying freaks in his pages. Fatsis is a terrific writer and makes SCRABBLE strategy entertaining to the reader. The obsessive players that he writes about could as easily be addicted to collecting baseball cards, playing backgammon or any other activity. The game is a wonderful backdrop to the quirky characters, including himself, that the author introduces to us. Whether you played the game or not, the book will capture your imagination. It is a game of words but the word the book most often brings to mind is entertaining. Who knows, you may want to engage in a little SCRABBLE of your own once you finish this book. If you enjoy well-written non-fiction sprinkled with humor and wit, this is a great book for you, even if you don't know the last word in the Official SCRABBLE Player's Dictionary- zyzzyva- a tropical weevil.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Portrait of a Subculture
Review: As a living room player of Scrabble who only drags out the board about ten times a year or so, I have only a passing interest in the game itself-however I am fascinated by subcultures of all kinds, and the kooky word of competitive Scrabble was just too alluring to pass up. For the most part Fatsis succeeded in writing a compelling and vivid story of the game and its lovers, while detailing his own growing obsession/addiction to it. His feat of juggling Scrabble's corporate and sociological history, basic and high strategic theory, arcana, intimate portraits of top players, along with his own amazing rise to expert level rating, is what makes the narrative successful and compelling to even the non-Scrabble players.There are a couple of caveats to this endorsement. Casual players such as myself must accept that Scrabble played at the competitive level described in Fatsis's account is almost a completely deferent game from what gets played in living rooms amongst family members. First of all, it's generally one on one, with a 25-minute timer. Secondly-and most importantly-the words played with often bear little relation to standard English as you and I know it. Indeed, as his lengthy discussion of the compilation of the official Scrabble dictionary makes clear, almost no word is too obsolete or archaic, and no transliteration too ridiculous to play. Oh yeah, and by the way, the rest of the world uses the British version dictionary with about 20,000 other words. In other words, looking at an expert level Scrabble board can often be like looking at gibberish. Once one gets over this, one learns along with Fatsis that the only way to get into the upper ranks of the Scrabble world is to memorize words... for years... Of course, how you memorize the words matters, and Fatsis makes sure to explain how a number of the top players accomplish this (hint, you need 4-10 free hours a day, which might explain why so many top Scrabble players don't hold down regular jobs). Along with sheer memorization is anagramming, which trains one to pick words out of jumbled letters, and then there's all the strategy involved in managing the rack (ie. your tiles), the board, and soforth. This naturally drifts into the realm of probability and game theory and such, which gets rather detailed and may not hold the attention of some readers (although I quite liked these discussions). The book could have done better in cutting the history of tedious and petty feuds between top players and Scrabble management and corporate ownership. They don't bring anything to the story other than to emphasize the pettiness of maladjusted adults and a desire on Fatsis's part to leave no stone unturned. It's amazing enough that he makes us care about a number of social misfits who find solace and meaning in their Scrabble obsessions, there's no need to push the envelope and quote their lengthy e-mail flames to oneanother. The book's other main weakness is it's treatment of women. Fatsis quickly gets in with a number of the guys devoting chapters to a number of them, but he only spends three pages talking to the top women players! It's an area in which his journalistic training seems to have failed him, since there are a number of interesting difference between woman and men players that he only skims the surface of. It's as if in dealing with his own efforts to claw his way up the ratings and hang with his buddies, he didn't have the energy left to deal with the women. Still, these are relatively minor quibbles for what is a mostly fascinating window into an oddball subculture.
Rating: 
Summary: Turned me off to Scrabble
Review: The acquaintance who recommended this book told me it would renew my interest in and excitement about playing Scrabble. Wrong! The message I took away from this read is renewed belief that human beings can pervert just about anything. Another reviewer mentioned her offense at the author's denegration of "blue hairs," as he likes to call female senior citizens. He also seems to disdain "fat middle aged women," whom he refers to several times and whom he is humiliated to lose to. Later in the book, he deigns to devote a couple of pages to female Scrabble players and explains that, although they outnumber male players in tournaments, they are not competitive at the highest levels -- mostly because they have lives apart from Scrabble (like jobs, family, friends) -- unlike the obsessive male Scrabble players who dominate the book, several of whom seem to be genuinely mentally ill. If I had any ideas of joining a Scrabble club or doing anything more than playing occasionally with my sister, this book squelched those desires. And perhaps it's just as well. As a fat middle-aged women about 10 years short of a blue-hair, I am probably better off sticking with quilting and needlepoint where I can be with my own kind. I have rated this book 3 stars because Fatsis does have a way of drawing me into the book. Just when I'm ready to set it aside, either because the technical detail is boring or because I'm offended by his treatment of women, he manages to recapture my attention. It's not a page turner, but I feel compelled to finish reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: Work Freak Succeeds on Several Levels
Review: The story of personal achievement in competitive tournament-level Scrabble and trying to place that achievement into context forms the backbone of Word Freak. The result of writing about such an endeavor regarding a board game would most likely result in a slim volume; however, Word Freak is broad in scope. Who knew that a substantial book of 360 pgs could be written about Scrabble? Even as a tournament player of several years, with plenty of my own strategies & stories to tell, I was a bit skeptical at first. Fatsis makes Word Freak succeed by entwining game history, anecdotes, and the stories of very interesting people with his individual achievement of growing from a Scrabble novice into an expert. The result is a very readable book that switches gears every couple of chapters to maintain reader interest. Of particular interest is the history of the Scrabble game, how it changed owners, and how that, in turn, affected the realm of competitive Scrabble players. The book is thorough in representing the types of Scrabble players, including the board blocking blue-hairs, the idiot-savant experts, and even those with normalized social skills. One weakness is that the book occasionally wanders off into detailed strategical explanations, perhaps losing the interest of everyday players. The ultimate reason that Word Freak succeeds is because the story comes back around to the personal experience of the writer, the fact that Scrabble is only a game, and that friends met and challenging one's self along the way is reason enough to be obsessed with Scrabble perfection.
Rating:
Summary: Comments on Word Freak
Review: An excellent and undeniably soul-arousing book. Fatsis skillfully combines the subtle concepts and elements of testerone-charged obsession, feverish competition and curious intellectual hierarchy and binds them in with the tantalizing richness of personal experience to create a fine novel carefully developed and structured from the game of Scrabble itself. The book itself breathes the personalities of gifted, strangely aloof Scrabble geniuses that exhibit great anagramming prowess and analytical skill, and with this to draw the reader in, Fatsis further delves into his rise up the hierarchy of Scrabble ratings and titles, from being a casual living-room player to playing and cogitating side by side with the masters. The book is also rich with scrabble jargon and general knowledge, and inspires both soul and intellect at its truest core, even that of the non-Scrabble player. At levels beneath what most readers will care to dwell at, the book cautiously probes the realms of mathematics and game theory, sometimes even penetrating the domains of psychology and underlying consciousness, only further drawing the reader in overwwhelming embrace. Fatsis has effectively managed to connect with even the non-scrabble player with a flowing narrative and satisfying content, casually and delightfully composed. Word Freak truly is an outstandingly crafted novel, detailed and pleasurable to the very last word.
Rating:
Summary: We Have Met The Enigmatic... And He Is Us
Review: "For a moment I wonder, like Roz, what my obsession is proving. Maybe nothing. Maybe more than I care to admit. With the board and tiles and word books splayed across my living room, and my regular circuit of tournaments, and leaving work early on Thursdays to get to the club on time, I have managed to reorder my life so that I can play a board game. This doesn't seem healthy, especially because I still suck. But it doesn't seem avoidable, either. I entered this world because it was a curiosity, a good story. Then it became an infatuation. I'm having trouble typing these words, but right now Scrabble is the most important thing in my life." Stefan Fatsis sets out to report on the world of competitive Scrabble and ends up getting sucked in beyond what he'd intended for his story. As expected, this book is very much about the game, and between the stories of the people he meets, the strange drama of the national and international tournament systems, and the history of the game itself, Fatsis has put together an intriguing little story. A strange story, to be sure, about strange people, but an interesting little diversion--if that's all he'd managed. But somehow, in examining this quirky subculture of which he becomes a part (and himself as he becomes a part of it), Fatsis exposes far more universal truths about personal validation, self-identity, and the realities we create around ourselves. I'm not even sure he means to, so absorbed is he in his quest for 'the total game.' Sometimes he's a bit tedious about this or that anagram or the possibilities for such and such word combination--but that's what 'those people' do. I'm left haunted by the uncomfortable suspicion, though, that most of the rest of us are similarly off-center, almost as unbalanced, and just as desperate for validation in our own misfit little portions of the world. Fortunately the individuals portrayed are sympathetic characters more than pathetic ones, and it's not so bad to feel connected to most of them. I'm pretty sure there's a lesson implicit in Word Freak about life involving luck side by side with choices and skill, and being all you can be, and even something about how you play being more important than how you rank against others. But seeing as how such sentimental melodrama makes me sick, I think I'll just stick with "Great book! It's about these people who are REALLY into Scrabble."
Rating:
Summary: We Have Met The Enigmatic... And He Is Us
Review: "For a moment I wonder, like Roz, what my obsession is proving. Maybe nothing. Maybe more than I care to admit. With the board and tiles and word books splayed across my living room, and my regular circuit of tournaments, and leaving work early on Thursdays to get to the club on time, I have managed to reorder my life so that I can play a board game. This doesn't seem healthy, especially because I still suck. But it doesn't seem avoidable, either. I entered this world because it was a curiosity, a good story. Then it became an infatuation. I'm having trouble typing these words, but right now Scrabble is the most important thing in my life." Stefan Fatsis sets out to report on the world of competitive Scrabble and ends up getting sucked in beyond what he'd intended for his story. As expected, this book is very much about the game, and between the stories of the people he meets, the strange drama of the national and international tournament systems, and the history of the game itself, Fatsis has put together an intriguing little story. A strange story, to be sure, about strange people, but an interesting little diversion--if that's all he'd managed. But somehow, in examining this quirky subculture of which he becomes a part (and himself as he becomes a part of it), Fatsis exposes far more universal truths about personal validation, self-identity, and the realities we create around ourselves. I'm not even sure he means to, so absorbed is he in his quest for 'the total game.' Sometimes he's a bit tedious about this or that anagram or the possibilities for such and such word combination--but that's what 'those people' do. I'm left haunted by the uncomfortable suspicion, though, that most of the rest of us are similarly off-center, almost as unbalanced, and just as desperate for validation in our own misfit little portions of the world. Fortunately the individuals portrayed are sympathetic characters more than pathetic ones, and it's not so bad to feel connected to most of them. I'm pretty sure there's a lesson implicit in Word Freak about life involving luck side by side with choices and skill, and being all you can be, and even something about how you play being more important than how you rank against others. But seeing as how such sentimental melodrama makes me sick, I think I'll just stick with "Great book! It's about these people who are REALLY into Scrabble."
Rating:
Summary: An amazing look at the world of professional Scrabble
Review: It's amazing to think that something like Scrabble could lead to an all-consuming obsession. I'd always been an avid amateur player and enjoyed the game, but I'd certainly never spent hours combing the dictionary for new words. Yet in Fatsis' book, we get an opportunity to take a brief glimpse into the worlds of those who do, and to witness Fatsis' own growing compulsion to reach the somewhat dubious goal of Scrabble perfection. That said, I'll admit that I had a copy of the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary (or the OSPD, as it's referred to among the hard-core players), some word lists, and a stack of flash cards by the time I was done reading the book. The intensity of the prose and the obvious enthusiasm of the people involved drew me into their world whether I had intended to go or not. After all, how could I not admire the foreign players that routinely play words that I'd never consider getting on the board, even though they have no clue what they mean? How could I not respect the acumen of those that pick typos out of the Oxford English Dictionary, or even notice that the older Scrabble boxes show tiles with the wrong point values, or anagram a paragraph of text at a time? From the first page to the last, the book offers a view of a unique subculture, in which it is impossible to escape the allure of the words. When I reached the appendix, in which Fastis lists all of the words in the book that were not Tournament-legal, I could tell how his report on this topic had drawn him in. When I went to verify some of the book's stranger words in my copy of the OSPD, I realized how successfully he had drawn me in as well. An excellent read, but make sure you have some free time to deal with the inevitable obsession.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for Scrabble lover - Great book for anyone
Review: I'm 25, and I can count the number of books I've read since High School on one hand. And this is one of them. Given to me by my sister-in-law (who knows I play scrabble online) I was hesitant. When I started reading I found I could not put the book down. Even when i was done with it I bookmarked certain sections (tricks the author or players use) to read them at a later time. The book can get a tad bit technical at some points, but the story behind it is definately clear.
Rating:
Summary: A really great read.
Review: I haven't played Scrabble in years (& then only as a hobbyist) but you don't have to play Scrabble to like this book. It's a terrific read for anyone who's ever been competitive and an interesting meditation on the roles that both discipline and talent play in becoming really great at something. Fatsis starts off wanting to document people who are obsessive about Scrabble and ends up obsessive himself. An interesting and seemingly honest look at his own journey while at the same time a good portrait of the Scrabble-playing world. Suitable for many people on your gift list, I should think.
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