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Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players
Houghton Mifflin
July 2001
On Sale: July 7, 2001
384 pages
ISBN: 0618015841
EAN: 9780618015849
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Stefan Fatsis, a Wall Street Journal reporter and National
Public Radio regular, recounts his remarkable rise through
the ranks of elite Scrabble players while exploring the
game's strange, potent hold over them -- and him.
Scrabble might truly be called America's game. More than
two million sets
are sold every year and at least thirty million American
homes have one. But the game's most talented competitors
inhabit a sphere far removed from the masses of "living
room players." Theirs is a surprisingly diverse subculture
whose stars include a vitamin-popping standup comic; a
former bank teller whose intestinal troubles earn him the
nickname "G.I. Joel"; a burly, unemployed African American
from Baltimore's inner city; the three-time national
champion who plays according to Zen principles; and Fatsis
himself, who we see transformed from a curious reporter to
a confirmed Scrabble nut.
He begins by haunting the gritty corner of a Greenwich
Village park where pickup Scrabble games can be found
whenever weather permits. His curiosity soon morphs into
compulsion, as he sets about memorizing thousands of
obscure words and fills his evenings with solo Scrabble
played on his living room floor. Before long he finds
himself at tournaments socializing -- and competing -- with
Scrabble's elite.
But this book is about more than hardcore Scrabblers, for
the game yields
insights into realms as disparate as linguistics,
psychology, and mathematics. WORD FREAK extends its reach
even further, pondering the light Scrabble throws on such
notions as brilliance, memory, competition, failure, and
hope. It is a geography of obsession that celebrates the
uncanny powers locked in all of us.
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