CROSSTALK: Letters to America’s Foremost Crossword Puzzle...

CROSSTALK: Letters to America’s Foremost Crossword Puzzle Authority by Eugene T. Maleska (Fireside: $12; 287 pp., paperback original). As crossword puzzle editor of the New York Times, Eugene Maleska gets a lot of letters from solvers who disagree with definitions, object to clues or catch typographical errors. Their letters and his responses are sometimes funny, but Maleska emerges as a smug man who delights in using obscure and archaic definitions in childish games of verbal one-upmanship. This rather unflattering self-portrait may please disgruntled puzzle fans who are tired of ransacking the dictionary for Brazilian palm trees, Japanese apricots and other crossword esoterica.