A surprising and ambitious investigation of language and the varied ways women resist the paradoxes of patriarchy both on and off the page..

A book too mischievously multiform to classify. It is in part a history of the crossword puzzle.

Shechtman has spent the better part of the past decade agitating for greater diversity among puzzle makers and for crosswords that reflect a more capacious sense of common knowledge, a project she expands upon and complicates in The Riddles of the Sphinx.

Shechtman is delightful when sly... and she sees the implications in every bit of linguistic play.

Freewheeling.

The Riddles of the Sphinx resembles the best themed crosswords: paradoxical puzzles that are simultaneously rigid and relational, entertaining and educational.

Rigorous yet fleet-footed.

Absorbing.