This book would have been so much more interesting if the author had been able to tamp down on his own biases. The memoir aspect with him setting a goal was a decent framing device but there's a point where the author's arrogance and sexism just became a slog to get there. The men he chose to follow were interesting characters to be sure, but a little too samey. Fatsis very clearly wanted to paint a portrait of the kings of the Scrabble board being socially awkward losers with more peccadillos and eccentricities than you can shake a Scrabble bag at.

The biggest weakness in my view, is that in his desire to focus on the 'characters' of the game, he cut himself off from interesting threads. He mentioned twice that a Black woman, Lisa Odom, was the highest ranking female player and she was married to another high ranking player and yet didn't profile her. Trimming out even a fraction of the copious amounts of time Fatsis spent transcribing his games of Anagrams with his friends would have left plenty of space for it.

Ultimately, Fatsis' sexism put me off. The constant disparagement of older women, whom he called "blue-hairs" and felt that he was better than was consistently annoying. If he had been more able to take off his Gen X straight guy goggles, I think the book would have been much stronger.

Word Freak was lent to me by a person who I was losing pretty badly to in Words With Friends. Perhaps he thought it would help me raise my game. Fatsis is a journalist who in short order, about two years, became an expert division one Scrabble player, attaining a rank of 1733. His book has chapters on the history and origins of the game, its commercialization and continuing success, and a number of the more colorful characters or "freaks" who are among the upper echelon players and who serve as coaches and mentors for Fatsis's own trajectory from journeyman to top flight tournament player. This "it takes a community to make a champion" vibe reminded me of all the players who helped prodigy Beth Harmon face the Russian chess masters in the popular Netflix documentary, The Queen's Gambit. Fatsis himself draws other parallels between the two games: the fanatic devotion, the innate talent, the tens of thousands of hours of study, the strategizing. But if top flight chess players are often depicted as veering on the edge of insanity, Fatsis's fellow gamers are more like high school misfits and nerds. At the end of the day, I learned a lot about how Fatsis improved his game through incessant study of dictionaries and word lists. Through anagramming, playing tons of games with his new friends, entering tournaments, studying games played, analyzing key moves, creating anamonic phrases, and much much more. That said, this book, did not make me better at Words with Friends. But it was an amusing and enjoyable glimpse into a world filled with zany and passionate and intelligent word freaks. They were great company.

I thought I would like this book, but didn't think I'd spend half a day laying outside reading almost the entire second half. Each chapter of the book follows the characters of the pro scrabble world as they live their weird lives and compete at the national and international levels of the game. I loved how crazy each person was and how differently they all led their lives, while competing at the same game. From genius math students to homeless people, the author got stories and scrabble strategy from every type of player. He also become one of the top players in the country. I liked the story Marlon, always angry and the world and Edley, the champion who refused to learn the overseas rules to compete internationally. All the players made sacrifices for the game, many of them sacrificing more than professional athletes for farrrr less of a payoff.

I've been listening to the sports podcast by the author for a while so it was fun to see a different side of his personality in how he wrote about this experience, which really changed his life. I loved the details he used to describe the emotions of the players and how their lives revolved around the game, and the very normal settings that became everything for these players. At times the book made me want to get really into scrabble, but it also pushed me away a little seeing how miserable some of the competitors were.

I slow read this book over 2 years following Stefan's foray through the people and world of competitive Scrabble. I love to play Scrabble and do feel competitive when I play. However, my fascination is more with the words than the strategies, but I did learn to see that good Scrabble play requires a huge spelled word vocabulary, even if you can't define many of the words. The visual mapping of where to play for highest score taxes my underdeveloped visual-spacial brain to ever be more than your average at home player. I didn't find this book dry to read but rather is interesting, humorous, and a great behind the scenes view of the world of Scrabble. Those who love "nerdish" and eccentric people will find plenty to smile about and relate to in this book.

Just getting into the game myself and this serves as a great introduction to the mentality and history of competitive play.

I find that it drags a bit when detailing individual tournaments. I’m interested in Fatsis’ overall arc but pretty uninterested in the specific plays — the writing often assumes the opposite. That said, this seems to capture the feeling I had in college debate (that I imagine is very common in scrabble) of having the ins and outs of each round recounted by someone who can’t tell you’re disinterested. So it kiiiiinda works in that sense.

I also could’ve gone without the theorizing about gender based on 3 women experts. The topic itself is interesting but “women don’t anagram the way men do” felt like grasping at a Big Conclusion from not much info.

Overall, would recommend. It’s an interesting profile of the top level players and history of the game, and a less-interesting memoir of the authors entry into competitive play.

I always enjoy reading about someone who is obsessed with something that doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. So, while I enjoy the occasional game of Scrabble, and will never forget the time the spouse but down "quahogs" on a triple word score, memorizing lists of words is not for me. Fortunately, Fatsis was up to the challenge of becoming a competitive Scrabble player. It is a long, strange trip.

I can't imagine a more readable book about the history of Scrabble and the world of competitive Scrabble players. That said, a book about Scrabble is only so interesting unless you are a Scrabble enthusiast (which I'm not). I loved all the geeky linguistic stuff, but found myself bored by the memoir elements. I just didn't care about the author's journey to expert status, although it was a good way to demonstrate the work it takes to be an expert. I'd recommend it to Scrabble lovers, but unless you have that passion for the game, it is hard to get through.

Stephen Fatsis writes a fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat book on the quirky, obsessive, very male-dominated world of competitive Scrabble playing. Although the cast of characters is fascinating enough, I was more interested in Fatsis' own transformation from "living room" player to a high-ranking qualifier in major tournaments. He describes his initial frustration at losing to the blue hair set to even more frustration at not grasping expert game strategies. He learns that in order to become a champion Scrabble player, you have to make it your life: study constantly, develop anagramming skills, memorize 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 letter words and their modifiers, and learn and re-learn the combinations of letters to make all-important bingos (the 50 point bonus earned by using all 7 letters on your rack). Some of the ways that top players study range from obvious (flash cards) to the insane (memorizing complex pneumonic phrases).

The game is also not without its controversies, not the least of which is the Official Word List which is in need of major revisions, cites often obscure words some of which are not in any dictionary, and is censored of "objectionable" words. Not to mention that overseas competitions use British words as well, allowing thousands of additional playable words. Included in all this is a fair chunk of Scrabble history including the odd fact that it is owned by two games companies. (Hasbro only has the North American rights, Mattel the rest of the world). "Word Freak" contains the elements of riveting sports writing told by the aspiring insider.

3 1/2 stars When I found this book at a thrift store, I had just started playing Words with Friends and thought that I was pretty good with words. The game taught me differently and this book reinforced why. Scrabble is a game of anagrams and I just like "pretty words".
Fatsis spends a lot of the book diagramming and describing how some specific games were played and that got to be a bit tedious for me (just not that analytical). But, it was fun to dig into a world of just one more kind of obsession. He describes how various experts of the game make their lives around this game--a game that is a trademarked product totally unlike chess or checkers. I didn't even know that there were different rules depending on US or British gameplay.

If you ever wanted to know about competitive Scrabble, you will learn a lot about it in this book. The author immerses himself in the competitive Scrabble world. He shares his experiences, what he learned and who he met along the way. He teaches us about how competitive Scrabble differs from those who play casually at home. We meet very interesting people who teach the author how to become better at Scrabble. Along with TONS of practice we follow him from a beginner to a higher level player (I won’t spoil it by specifying how good he gets.)

The book includes LOTS of specific words that he or others plays. The author marks words a certain way to specify if they are phony (not real words according to scrabble) or are acceptable words in North America or Great Britain. At times, board layouts are even shared to complement the stories.

This is a long book (at least to me) at over 400 pages and a heavy read. It is not quick reading. I chose to read it little bits at a time as a bathroom book. Although I appreciated the Scrabble tips, I enjoyed “meeting” other Scrabble players more. The players we meet are an odd bunch. That’s what makes them fun though.

The only downside of the book was that at times it really dragged on with all the words played. I preferred the memoir style reading parts more than the discussions of specific words. Well I liked the discussion of words in that I love reading about language but sometimes it was just too much.

This book was thrust upon me by a competitive scrabble playing friend... I think as penance for asking stupid questions and coffeehousing over the board.

As good as any Weird Community or Sports book you'll ever read. Scrabble Pros are a different breed.

Five stars, and a fifty point bonus for using all the letters.

The most fun I’ve had in a book for over a year, and rocketing straight into my top ten books all time, Word Freak was hard to put down, and may have improved my Scrabble game along the way!

Stefan Fatsis stepped away from The Wall Street Journal and into some obscure places with funny names, to sit across the Scrabble board from and learn the stories of the players, as well as of the classic game that drives them. Fatsis tells their tales, and relives his own attempt at reaching Scrabble experthood, with a few dozen invalid Scrabble words and altogether fake words thrown in just for giggles.

While he presents much of the strategy of the game, it is clear early and throughout the book that Scrabble is all about words—not definitions, just words—and studying which letters work together for big points. The multitude of types of word lists encountered grows a bit tedious, but the eccentric personalities of their creators and studiers more than makes up for that. Fastis lets us know in the introductory pages that there will be board diagrams throughout the book, but happily, they were few and far between, usually not a necessary visual for the telling of game action.

I found myself laughing to tears more than once, and riveted to every page. Meanwhile, I started seeing words differently and faster (maybe?) in my own games on the latest Scrabble app. Not wanting to get tournament-good with the required dedication to word list study, I think I’m safe for now.

There is at least one more recent edition—the author’s 10th anniversary release—than the original 2001 version, now somewhat dated. Along with many other letter combinations, QI is now valid in North American Scrabble as well abroad. That’s no insignificant difference, to a player!

This is a must-read for any serious Scrabble player, both for tips and for entertainment, but I also encourage non-players who are daring readers to take a chance on this terrific text. Word- and math-nerds will love the language quirks and the statistics, but there’s something worthwhile—even inspirational—in here for everyone.