I play Scrabble weekly at Heirloom Books with an old friend, the two of us scoring in the 300-400s usually, though he made 501 a week ago. The games are non-competitive in the sense that we allow dictionary perusal and have no challenge penalties. I've been playing the game occasionally since adolescence.

Author Fatsis, sports writer for the WSJ, tells the story of how he entered the world of 'professional' Scrabble in order to write this book. Much of the text consists of detailed descriptions of his own play and progress as well as thumbnail profiles of some of his fellow players. Frankly, I found most of that rather boring, enjoying more the two chapters on the creation of the game and its corporate history. Indeed, the descriptions of Scrabble study, of what it takes to become a 'professional', to actually make money as a player, are pretty depressing as so much of the effort is invested in memorizing word lists, prefix lists and suffix lists.

What I'd be interested in would be play that required knowledge of the meaning of the words played. I'd also prefer the use of an agreed upon standard dictionary of the English language, not the 'official' Scrabble dictionaries of the UK, USA or joint UK/USA which currently allow such 'words' as 'sh', 'shh', 'shhh', 'eeew', 'ab' and the like.

I really enjoyed this book initially and found a lot of learn about scrabble and the competitive players. Then about 50% in, I thought "This book should end now". I got the point. Some scrabble players are a little crazy. Being good at something can be consuming. Let there be heartbreak and triumph. Would totally recommend reading 50% of this book!

An honest read about investment in and validation by the trivial. Fatsis reports details so frankly you have to believe every detail of the strange, unglorious, and intoxicating world he found himself drawn to.

It provides an interesting bit of history about America's favorite word game, numerous profiles of the game's celebrities, and a pre-emptive look at a tournament scene that wished for the organization and funding associated with today's e-sports.

Also, you'll never be able to play Scrabble the same way again.

Oh the drama scrabble players must endure...

You'll never view a Scrabble board the same way after this.

Also, it's not the book that you'd expect to find Halakhic discussions in, but there it is.

As a pretty pedestrian Scrabble player, I'm interested in the people who play the game competitively (on a competitive circuit). Word Freak promised to give me a glimpse into the Scrabble world so I gave it a try.

Mr. Fatsis, whose word puzzles and games I enjoy in NPR, has written a compelling book about Scrabble players, the competitions, how players prepare, and his own education about the game. He gets to know some of the players fairly well and is able to describe their idiosyncracies as individuals. He also learns some of the strategies and tricks to playing Scrabble well, including but certainly not limited to rote repitition and word study.

Although I found the first one-third of the book interesting, it lost steam (or my interest did) before I got to the half-way point. I set it aside for several months thinking I would get back to it but I kept finding other books I wanted to read instead. Given that, I opted not to finish the book and to pass it along to my fiance, who wants to give it a try.

Mr. Fatsis writes well and with a personable voice. He seems to be someone who can relate easily with others, which contributes to his ability to learn about the game and its players. I don't mean to detract from Mr. Fatsis' writing by giving the book three stars; it was only the subject that didn't hold my interest.

Loooooooved this. Utterly delightful. This was mentioned in Seven Games: A Human History and I knew I needed it. For a book written over 20 years ago, this felt so fresh and timely.

Watch Stefan go from an objective reporter to an obsessed competitor who befriends all of this oddball characters was brilliant. I wanted to be in on this.

Also, the research, history (learned so much about the toy industry, Scrabble's history, and more), and more were incredibly done.

So this was like an entertaining memoir/cultural document/historical survey and it couldn't have been better. Now I need to Google these people and see what they've been up to.

I’ve had his book sitting on my shelf for a while, and I finally decided to read it. I remember it being a best seller with great reviews so I was expecting a fun breezy read about competitive scrabble. What it is a slog that takes all the fun out of scrabble and it’s unexpectedly sexist. I’m about halfway through and I might not finish, which is seriously rare for me.

The author engaged in scrabble tournaments and one thing I’ve learned is that if you want to take all the fun out of scrabble then enter a tournament. When you think of the game of scrabble you think of words don’t you? Maybe that’s because it’s a word game, but According to the author scrabble isn’t a word game, it’s a math game and your vocabulary doesn’t even matter. You don’t need to know that a Kwijibo is a North American Balding ape, you just need to know that there is such a word as Kwijibo and you need to memorize list after list of these words while giving no thought to their meanings at all. Ugh, what’s the point if I wanted to play a math game I would play, well I wouldn’t play a math game at all, and neither would you. That’s why there are no math games as successful as Scrabble.

Competitive scrabble players not even caring about the words or having a good vocabulary isn’t even the biggest flaw in this book. It is incredibly sexist. The author spend chapter after chapter describing the top ranked male winners of scrabble. He goes into great detail about how quirky they are, this one’s an unsuccessful comedian, this one is a slob, this one takes 1200 vitamins a day, while the top ranking women’s names are rarely even mentioned.

Usually when women are mentioned it’s negative, like I played so badly I lost to Jane, a novice. (Or Dawn, or Shirley, or whoever.) The author takes on a smug superior tone whenever he plays a woman. There is a whole category he dismisses as the blue hairs, and he goes on and on about how he has to graduate to the next level so he won’t be trapped forever playing the blue hairs. He is not only sexist but ageist too.

To me it’s a complete mystery how this book got to be so well known and a best seller. If you see it at your local goodwill don’t bother.

I thought I was a word freak. After reading the book Word Freak,however, I realize I'm apparently just a lover of words. I'm fascinated by words for their meanings, their specificity, their nuances, their stories, their sounds. Scrabble, for me, is just plain fun. The word freaks described by Fatsis memorize words for competitive gain in Scrabble tournaments. His word freaks are strategists, often obsessed, often genius.

Fatsis introduces readers to the interesting world of competitive Scrabble. He tells personal stories of key players and includes amusing anecdotes and amazing anagrams. He reveals winning strategies. And he involves the reader in his own desire to move up the ranks of competitive Scrabble players.

But unless you ARE a word freak in the obsessed sense or someone really really really wanting to win at living room Scrabble, this book holds limited interest.

I enjoy Scrabble. Well, more recently, I'm interested in Words With Friends. Every so often I'll reinstall the game, play a few rounds with my mom, get bored by the game's stalling tight boards as we overlay 2 letter word after 2 letter word, and then uninstall it. In my naive world, we were "top tier" scrabblers, wielding our ZAs and QIs in a way that suppressed each other's moves until we could crush each other.

Little did I know that ZA and QI are childs play. Reading this book was an interesting dive into real world competitive scrabble, into the elements that separate the winners from the losers. And apparently, I knew nothing.

This book was a great opportunity to see what competitive scrabble really is. To see the word lists and memorization. To see that the game isn't about who is more well read and has the broader vocabulary, but instead, who has spent more time learning what arbitrary combinations of letters count as a "valid move."

I suppose that was the good and the bad of the book. It was cool to discover how intense the upper echelons of scrabble play are, but it was also deflating. I have no interest in memorizing a slew of words. It makes the game feel more like a battle of who has studied more, not who has more tactics and skill.

Despite that, it was cool learning some of the general strategies of scrabble that I was unaware of. How critical bingos are, and the way the higher player boards actually end up being much more open and unraveling as these players are hitting home runs compared to my games of defensive singles. The strategy around rack management was also interesting. I had always just aimed to use the most letters, or maximize the most points in a single round. But for pros, much more of it is using tiles to improve your rack for future turns, to open up opportunities for bingos. These kinds of elements were really interesting to me and pieces I wish were more in the book.

And then of course, there were the people and the show downs. The book went into fairly detailed analysis of scrabble games, and I know for some people that will likely prove grueling. But I found it great. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to find out how he would do in tournaments and how he would come out against these players. And so many of these players were such characters it was really interesting for me.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I get why a lot of people will find it boring. It's largely mundane, it never seems to really hit on any fundamental themes, and instead flails at trying to hit on "the people who play are weird!" But it clicked for me. So I'll take it.

On assignment to write about Scrabble tournaments, author Stefan Fatsis became fascinated with the game and soon entered competitions. Word Freak tells the story of the competitive Scrabble subculture and the colorful contestants who travel the country to enter these tournaments.

Here's the thing about Word Freak: even if you don't enjoy reading about the world of competitive Scrabble (I certainly did), you will become a better Scrabble player. Secrets are revealed and you'll want to try them out the next time you play.

There seems to be a clear coefficient running through this book. More words = Less social skill. Nonetheless the players are impressive, the factual sections are interesting and the anecdotes geeky and lovable.