The Guardian Cryptic Crosswords 1: A collection of more than 100 perplexing puzzles (Guardian Puzzle Books)

I like the puzzles - mostly. (But one shouldn't expect to like every cryptic setter's style.)I've given this four stars because I wanted to learn how to do cryptic puzzles and this collection wasn't especially helpful.It's probably a bit much to expect dissection of the answers but an intro would have been helpful. (I am getting there slowly but many answers remain a mystery.)Also, when I check or steal an answer I'm at risk of seeing neighbouring answers. I'm being careful - and I'm not sure there is a solution to this.

It's about time that the Guardian returned to publishing past crosswords in book form. I wish there was an Araucaria retrospective ...

Delighted that this book has been published - doing crosswords online just isn't the same as pen on paper. The Guardian crosswords strike just the right balance being tricky enough to keep the brain active and ensure each one takes a fair bit of thought, bit without being too obscure. I tried the cryptic crossword books of various other broadsheet newspapers before this was published and they were all simply terrible by comparison.

As most people are right-handed, wouldn't it have been better to have the grid on the right (recto) and the clues on the left (verso), to make it easier to complete?

Another book of excellent Guardian cryptic crosswords. 120 crosswords, by a variety of setters, though alas none by the late and great Araucaria.But beware! We have just completed puzzle No 7, and found it had a secret. On eventually looking up this crossword on the web (Guardian #28002), we found that the original came with Instructions, which were omitted in this book. If the book has other puzzles with missing instructions, then this will be more challenging than normal (though, to be honest, that just makes it more fun!).