FunFun

In December 1913, the New York World newspaper published the first crossword in history. It appeared in their Sunday supplement, "Fun". A century on, this absorbing puzzle continues to attract (and infuriate) millions of devotees every day. But the world's most popular - and seemingly mundane - pastime has a surprising history, filled with intrigue and adventure. Paolo Bacilieri's Fun transports us from turn-of-the-century New York to present day Milan, taking in stories of ingenious puzzle makers, ardent solvers and intellectual luminaries. Part detective story, part docudrama, and interlaced with a fiction of Bacilieri's own imagining, Fun questions the crossword's "harmless" status. Sure, it's fun - but could it also be a form of resistance, of cryptic communication, of espionage?