Rating: 
Summary: Fissate Fiestas Satisfy Fascist
Review: The title is all the 7-letter words that can be formed from Fatsis and a blank. Okay, I'm a little biased. And I'm only a fascist one evening a week. But seriously, having spent a fair amount of time with the author for the last four years, I can say I was tremendously impressed by the breadth of his research, the depth of his devotion to the subject as well as his own personal quest, and the honesty of his characterizations not only of many people I know well but also of himself. I learned things from this book that I never new about the history of Scrabble despite having been involved for nearly half of the life of the competitive association and having read as many publications as I could that have been generated within its community. I learned things about my fellow players that endeared me even more to some of them. I learned things about Stefan that made me feel we must be somehow related even tho I know we don't share any genes. And wouldn't you know it, on top of it all, I also found out the sonofagun can really write!I have to warn casual players (and readers) that parts of this book may appear to bog down in detailed explanations of how players study word lists and other apparent trivia. But when you reach one of those passages, please remember this is a work of non-fiction, and as such it has a duty to be informative at least part of the time. So skim past the slow passage, and you'll find more rewarding characterizations, beautifully chosen metaphors for the game and the author's struggle to master it, and narration that runs the gamut from poignant to weird to downright hilarious. The great majority of the book is as entertaining as it is informative, so don't stop til you reach the end -- I didn't, and I hadn't finished a book in years.
Rating:
Summary: Fissate Fiestas Satisfy Fascist
Review: The title is all the 7-letter words that can be formed from Fatsis and a blank. Okay, I'm a little biased. .... But seriously, having spent a fair amount of time with the author for the last four years, I can say I was tremendously impressed by the breadth of his research, the depth of his devotion to the subject as well as his own personal quest, and the honesty of his characterizations not only of many people I know well but also of himself. I learned things from this book that I never new about the history of Scrabble despite having been involved for nearly half of the life of the competitive association and having read as many publications as I could that have been generated within its community. I learned things about my fellow players that endeared me even more to some of them. I learned things about Stefan that made me feel we must be somehow related even tho I know we don't share any genes. And wouldn't you know it, on top of it all, I also found out the sonofagun can really write! I have to warn casual players (and readers) that parts of this book may appear to bog down in detailed explanations of how players study word lists and other apparent trivia. But when you reach one of those passages, please remember this is a work of non-fiction, and as such it has a duty to be informative at least part of the time. So skim past the slow passage, and you'll find more rewarding characterizations, beautifully chosen metaphors for the game and the author's struggle to master it, and narration that runs the gamut from poignant to weird to downright hilarious. The great majority of the book is as entertaining as it is informative, so don't stop til you reach the end -- I didn't, and I hadn't finished a book in years.
Rating: 
Summary: what hath Alfred wrought ?
Review: There comes a time in any obsession when you have to learn more. It doesn't matter whether the object of an obsession is a person, a sports car, a football team, or a board game. You just do. You need to see the shrinking world into which you are being sucked as a fully formed whole. Before I throw myself deeper into the abyss that Scrabble appears to be, hijacking my nights, weekends, and idle thoughts--I've started dreaming about the game--I need to understand where it came from, and how it became an institution unlike any other in the two-hundred-year history of the American toy industry. To do that, I need to answer one question : Who was Alfred Butts? -Word Freak There, in a paragraph, is what you're in for once you pick up this very interesting, often amusing, but ultimately troubling book. Stefan Fatsis, who many will be familiar with through his sports writing for the Wall Street Journal and/or his reports for NPR, offers both a comprehensive history of the game of Scrabble, and a fascinating portrait of the strange netherworld of Scrabble enthusiasts, with everyone from child prodigies to Zen Buddhists to psychiatric patients, traveling the country to get to tournaments where the top prize is a few thousand dollars. Though the book starts casually enough, with Fatsis playing pick up games in Washington Square Park, by the end he's completely obsessed, memorizing word lists, endlessly replaying blunders, and living and dying by his official Scrabble ranking (currently 1699, an agonizing one point below the 1700 goal he set himself, and briefly attained). Now, I'm willing to bet you've got a Scrabble set in your house, maybe even more than one. And you probably get it down a couple times a year--most likely at Christmas time and at some point in the Summer, when you're at the shore--play feverishly for a night or a week, and then put it away and forget about it for another six months. Maybe you even remember a particularly spectacular game or turn (Personally, I recall when I was 12 and my grandfather, a Federal judge and a a truly brilliant man, dropped the word MEASLES for the first play of the game, essentially finishing the contest right then). But here are a whole group of people who define themselves by, and judge their own self-worth by, their rankings in the game. To be a world class player requires you to memorize literally thousands of "words" that you will never see in the real world. Championship players know every two letter word, all the words that begin with Q, all the seven letter words, etc.--and actually don't even know them all, just know the ones that are accepted in the Official Tournament and Club Word List. They aren't even playing the game any more, they are just demonstrating memorization skills. They sure as heck don't seem to be enjoying themselves, which one would think is a fairly fundamental prerequisite for a game. In the beginning, Fatsis himself, while he does not hold them up for ridicule or anything like that, recognizes that much of the story here lies in the oddish personalities who are attracted to this competition. But then he too succumbs and gradually turns into the word freak of the title. The whole thing is more than a little disconcerting. Whether you're a Scrabble fan yourself, or just looking for a good read, the book is definitely enjoyable. But I couldn't help but agree with the sentiment expressed by Alfred Butts's nephew Bob (Alfred Butts, in case you hadn't figured it out, invented the game) : He thought he was inventing a game people would play around a card table, like bridge or something like that. He didn't quite get the point of memorizing word lists. Neither do I, Bob, neither do I. GRADE : B+
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, Beautifully Written
Review: This is a great book--I enjoyed every bit of it and plan to send a copy to my old Scrabble partner right away. The book works on so many levels: as a wonderfully accurate and detailed description of a unique subculture; as a compelling study of what it takes to thoroughly master whatever in life one loves (e.g, Scrabble, jazz, basketball); as a history of a great game; and as inspiration and instruction to Scrabble players at every level. Mr. Fatsis deserves kudos and the book should be widely read. If you love Scrabble, or words, or competition, or have a desire to master something you love, read this book.
Rating:
Summary: A strange tribe among us
Review: Fatsis spent time with avid scrabble players. Here are his observations. He relates through several dozen loosely linked narrations how the game has been transformed since the 1950s into a community that is strangely both exotic and familiar. This witty book celebrates scrabble as our national mental pasttime. Everyone who likes the game will find her or himself in these pages. With a fresh writing style, he shares a huge amount of information about the way the game is seriously (if not addictively) played without the reader feeling burdened. (Did you know that in any random selection of 7 tiles, there is a 12% chance of a seven letter word appearing?) Fatsis delves in an anthropological way into the life styles of noted participants in the competitive game. Some of these people are poster children for the saying that you either succeed in art or in life but not in both. The author knows how to approach even the most difficult personalities with wit and compassion. He takes the reader to visit lonely geniuses in ill-kept apartments, clubs in New york City which spawned top competitors, competitions in Reno and elsewhere. He recounts the tussles between player associations and the manufacturers as unhappy, comical scenes from a lifelong dysfunctional marriage. Fatsis is, I take it, a sports writer for the Wall Street Journal, and you should take that as an indication he knows how to bridge chasms. Lurking underneath the surface of his prose, I sense a belief in the power of play to discover value in our lives, and what more exquisite play is there but with words? Is it coincidental that during the decades of scrabble's dominance as a pasttime, one of our leading poets, James Merrill, used a Ouija board to help compose poems? There is a genre of books and films which focus on wierd, outcast personalities. Fatsis does spend time in his book at the edge of society. But this is not another story about loners. Fatsis himself is a semi-competitive scrabble player. By projecting himself both as participant and observer, he brings us along to the extent that many readers will find something of themselves in an antic life of competitive play. If you like scrabble, and if you are are curious about how creativity occurs in the world of play, and especially if there is a Walter Mitty crouching inside you, buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: On the Money
Review: As a mid-expert level tournament Scrabble player, I know the game and most of the people who populate this book. I greatly enjoyed this literate and entertaining account of the nature of the game, the often eccentric nature of its top players, and the personal quest of Mr. Fatsis to obtain a degree of mastery of this game which fascinates so many of us. I would think this work would be an interesting read for non-players or less serious players as well--but I may obviously be biased in this regard. Mr. Fatsis was not a "natural" at the game, and had to struggle mightily to conquer both the strategic and word knowledge challenges and his own psyche--struggles with which every competitive Scrabble player can identify. The struggles with his own psyche make compelling reading. . .and could be a metaphor for the difficulties faced by anyone attempting to gain mastery of any competitive endeavor. I suspect the "obsessiveness" required to approach the top of the Scrabble tournament scene is no greater than the obsessiveness required to achieve world class status at any other sport or game. There is probably no subject which can not be made interesting by a talented writer. Mr. Fatsis has turned his considerable skills to a little known competitive sub-culture and produced a riveting tale which runs the gamut from farce to high drama.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating!
Review: I just finished reading this book this morning, and I'm going to read it again. Simply put, this is an amazing book. As a tournament Scrabble player (currently ranked in the top 20 in North America), I never thought a book like this would be written, let alone published. If you are a Scrabble player, think you might want to be a Scrabble player, or have a friend or loved one who is a Scrabble player, you need to get this book right away, and read it from cover to cover. Be warned, though, that you will be appalled at some of the things within. Mr. Fatsis writes with brutal honesty, in the manner of the seasoned journalist that he is. Aside from giving the bizarre subculture of Scrabble a comprehensive treatment, Mr. Fatsis details his own journey from detached outsider to novice player to obsessed expert. An absolutely fascinating read. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: great insider's look
Review: Now a documentary film, this book will make most casual hobbyists who consider themselves pretty good at Scrabble reevaluate their definition of "good." An insider's look at the quirky, eccentric and colorful world of competitive Scrabble, amateur wordsmiths' jealousy and awe may be tempered after the players' lives are described. Many are mono-maniacs who put themselves on elaborate regimens of herbal and energy-boosting supplements, but not all are so focused. Some have other interests, some spend most of their time inside poring over word lists and memorizing strategies. While it is tempting to label these players crazy, we should remember that all passions to some extent lead to madness, if you pursue them to the highest level.
Rating:
Summary: BRITNEY SPEARS = PRESBYTERIANS = BEST IN PRAYERS
Review: "The next morning, remarkable things happen. At Table 3, Nigel Richards plays THIONINE, a violet dye...Three turns later, Nigel lays down USE, forming UG, SH, and ETHIONINES, which is an amino acid...On the next turn, [his opponent] Adam makes another extension by playing BAM to the triple word score, forming BUG, ASH, and METHIONINE, another amino acid..."
Author Stefan Fatsis gets a writing assignment that turns into a full-blown obsession, as he finds himself drawn inexorably into the quirky world of competitive Scrabble. Fatsis explores Scrabble from many perspectives, ranging from the history of the game to the physical changes that take place inside a Scrabble expert's brain.
But the bulk of the book is devoted to spotlighting the personalities that Fatsis comes into contact with, and to his own efforts at achieving an expert rating. The book basically follows this quest, breaking repeatedly to discuss some other aspect of the game.
Along the way, Fatsis explores some interesting social issues. Why is the sport dominated by women at the lower rankings, but ruled by men at the coveted expert level? Why do so many of the top achievers seem to be walking basket cases? What obligation (if any) does Hasbro, which owns the North American rights to Scrabble, have to foster the legitimacy of the sport?
The excerpt above is one of dozens of play by play descriptions of the board that demonstrate the vast gulf between expert players and the types of players who bust out the game during family gatherings. Most Scrabble experts don't even know the meaning of most of the words that they use; their vocabulary is bolstered by memorizing list after list of the 120,000 words found in the Scrabble dictionary. They calculate the odds of drawing certain letters from the bag, and they might bluff by intentionally laying down a phony in the hopes that their opponent won't have the gall to challenge it.
I enjoyed this book very much, especially after I got through a somewhat slow beginning. It fails to rise to the level of the best nonfiction books on similar topics, but it does present a compelling look at a little-imagined subculture from a variety of interesting angles.
I do have some criticisms of the book. My biggest problem is that Fatsis placed himself in an uncomfortable situation in which he had to walk the line between objective journalist, competitor, and good friend to the players of the game. At times, these roles conflict unavoidably. Instead of working his way up into a position of acceptance by the expert level players, Fatsis has used his journalistic credentials to "buy" his way into the tightly knit group, and his association with the top players is a key component in the progress he achieves as a competitor. Also, I see a difference in how he writes about himself and his fellow players. When talking about others in the game, he is brutally honest in analyzing their lives and their games. When talking about himself, he is only brutally honest about himself as it relates to the game. We get to know everything about Stefan the Scrabbler, and very little about Stefan the person. The fact that he respects his own privacy more than the privacy of his peers is a little troubling.
On a similar note, Fatsis uses the platform of his book to break one of his own cardinal rules, complaining about the luck of the draw. He never fails to point out when his opponents draw more desirable tiles, but he rarely mentions it when he "gets lucky" in this same way.
Also, I thought that perhaps too much time was spent giving back stories on some of the luminaries of the game; it felt to me as if perhaps he felt an obligation to write a little more than was necessary about the people he'd befriended.
Despite these small complaints, I thought that the book flowed fairly well. Fatsis's flair for language comes through in some of the writing, and the description of crucial tournament decisions by the best in the world are filled with tension and excitement. Also, we come to care for many of the offbeat personalities who have hung their life's ambitions on Scrabble. Matt Graham, Marlon Hill, and "GI Joel" Sherman are more than just characters; I found myself concerned for their well-being, and cheering for them as they struggled to find a place in this world.
You don't have to be a word-hound to enjoy this book; it is a keen and insightful look into a highly competitive sport, and that's going to be interesting to just about anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Narrator's personality gets in the way.
Review: I've done my best to read Word Freak, having heard great things about this memoir of the Scrabble championships but so far I just can't get past my dislike of the narrator. He interupts the flow of the book to either brag about his education (he has a degree in journalism) and yet he revels in his ignorance of words when the other better Scrabble players most often not only know if a set of tiles makes a word but what that word means. The author seems satisfied with only memorizing the word minus the definition because if the word were important he'd already know it. He does after all have a journalism degree. I passionately hate that line of reasoning.
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