WORLD ALMANAC CROSSWORD PUZZLES FROM THE 1920s <i> edited by Hana Lane (Pharos: $6.95, illustrated)</i>

No one knows when or where the first crossword puzzle was devised, but a craze for puzzles swept the country during the ‘20s, along with mah-jongg, bobbed hair and flagpole-sitting. These reprints from 1924 (the first year that puzzles were syndicated in newspapers) are surprisingly easy. Anyone who does modern crosswords will breeze through them, even the ones that admonish readers to “put on your thinking cap.” The reproductions of jazz-age graphics and cartoons make this collection a useful source book for illustrators and designers.