Cluetopia

A celebration of the 100th birthday of the crossword puzzle.

Crosswords are not as old as you think. The first one appeared a century ago, the little square keeping in remarkable shape. Cluetopia is here to toast the centenary, whizzing you through 100 years of remarkable clues, across the world, seeking the inside stories.

Come travel to New Guinea, Venezuela and Metropolis: every destination arising from a clue. Encounter love, murder, hoaxes, propaganda. Visit a Maori funeral, a Bass Strait oil-rig, a Russian game show-just some of side-trips locked inside a crossword.

With almost 100 mini-chapters, each one with a clue to crack, Cluetopia is a book for word lovers and puzzle fans. You'll see how crosswords capture the life around them, from prison cells to outer space. A holiday for the head, Cluetopia is as fun, as wild and as wordy as David's previous bestseller, Puzzled.

About the Author

David Astle has written two novels, Marzipan Plan and Book of Miles, plus three non-fiction works: Puzzled, One Down, One Missing and Offbeat Australia. Between books, he drives the world to delight and despair as Friday's crossword setter, DA, appearing in both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Actor Geoffrey Rush, in fact, describes David as 'the Sergeant Pepper of cryptic crosswords - a complete mind fuck'. Which is possibly a compliment. As a feature writer, David has investigated luck, lying and fridge magnets, plus a hundred different topics for various magazines. He also reviews books for Radio National. David's short plays have been performed in both Sydney and Melbourne, while his short stories have won awards, including a trip to Beijing via Dublin as part of the James Joyce Suspended Sentence Prize in 2001. He is currently Mr Dictionary on the SBS game show, Letters + Numbers.