Book Report: Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis

What I suspect is my final reading week triumph is Word Freak. Word Freak is all about Scrabble. Cameron gave it to me for Christmas in 2007, but the copy that was shipped had the first 22 or so pages upside down, backwards and off-center; it was sent back. As a replacement copy would have been sent to our parents' house and I wanted the book in Halifax, it was processed as a refund. The book was not available in local bookstores, so I waited until I had the required dollar amount for an online order with free shipping. I don't recall when I actually got the book.

I started reading the book this week after finally finishing Golden Ratio. Word Freak was a much quicker read. I'd been wanting to read Word Freak since autumn 2007, when I started playing Scrabulous (almost identically like Scrabble). Scrabulous, the Facebook application, was gone and is now back with the new name Lexulous (and different rules and tiles). Reading the book has given me more desire to play Scrabble and associated games, but I'm confident I won't ever become (or even try to become) an expert Scrabble player.

I learned a lot about Scrabble from the book. Previously I had seen two documentary films, Scrabylon and Word Wars, that covered lots of the same people and tournaments as were mentioned in the book. As one might guess, the book was much more detailed. The book also took a very different approach, the author was documenting his journey of becoming an expert Scrabble player. The films were just outside looking in. I retained lots of the images of some of the top Scrabble players and I think that helped me retain information from the book.

Unlike watching a movie based on a novel and then reading the novel, I do not feel that the movies tainted the book.

Most recent Lexulous game

Neil: 449

His Mother: 354

Blog-off

Cameron: 41

Neil: 45

A Few Quick Notes 117

-Today was another beautiful day in Montreal. It seems that we are having warm weather for a longer period of time than last year. Still, the leaves have started to turn and in some cases fall. There is one section of sidewalk not far from where I live that is covered in leaves.

-As of several days ago I started to put things on my walls. As has been the case for most of my life, I have typically chosen maps as wall coverings. The same trend has continued in this new apartment. As of right now I have two maps of Montreal, one a street map and one a public transit map, a map of Canada, a map of the US, a map of the world, and a map of the Island of Newfoundland.

-Collins was in town for a few days this past weekend. On Saturday night a few of us played Settlers and were amazed at how hot/due some numbers were. Unfortunately, my game didn’t come together and I was slaughtered in both games.

-While working a special function yesterday I was able to bartend of the first time. I was asked to hop on the bar once the line started to go outside. Because it was a drink ticket based event things were relatively straightforward and I didn’t have to make any fancy mixed drinks.

-It seems that my pocket dictionary has a list of two letter words in the back. Though they don’t come out and say it directly, I am pretty sure that they are meant for Scrabble players. The only problem, as noted by Nithum, is that not all of the two letter words they list are in the official Scrabble dictionary. On the other hand, if you can define a word and know its origin one might be less likely to challenge you (if you play that way).

-It has been a week and I am still somewhat under the weather. It seems that I am not as ill as I was about a week and a half ago, which is quite nice. Hopefully I will be back to normal health for the first time in months shortly.

-The Globe and Mail offers a drastically reduced subscription offer to current students. If you are interested in the paper this is definitely the way to subscribe (that is if you are a student). It seems that the discount is approaching 50% off of the advertised regular subscription rate.