The Complete Wordbook for Game Players: Winning Words for Word Freaks

The subtitle "Winning Words for Word Freaks" seeks to build on the bestseller "Word Freaks" by Stefan Fatsis, but is a bit misleading. Better would have been "Winsome Lists for Word Game Lovers". It is not necessary to attain expert proficiency in order to enjoy word games more. Sometimes just a little proficiency makes the difference between not enjoying and enjoying a word game. The bulk of the book at the end is for reference. The lists that will make a real difference to you are found towards the beginning: Complete lists of short words with difficult-to-use letters such as Q and J; words with their hooks (single-letter additions that form words); words with many vowels; and much, much more. These lists can help with crosswords, Boggle, or any word game, but the emphasis is on Scrabble. There's even a cleverly constructed game in which a hypothetical player comes back from a deficit of more than 700 points. There's not quite as much focus on the meanings of words as one might have hoped, but there is an interesting list of words such as CUTE which take unexpected plurals (CUTES is really the plural of CUTIS). Some of the most interesting material is autobiographical in nature, and highlights how word games like Scrabble are not at all just for freaks. The author's "unsolicited advice" is about the sagest I have ever seen, and can be modified to suit a wide variety of life situations. Having known him off and on for over twenty years, I am sure he will not object if I leave it to you to buy his book to find out what this advice is.