Oops! I erred on scheduling and this puzzle posted way earlier today than intended. I've deleted the early posting and am re-posting this now at the regular time. My apologies for the error.
Welcome to
Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up, a weekly opportunity to have a little fun and to get your brain in gear for the regular
Sunday Puzzle (which posts Sunday evenings at 8 pm Eastern time).
Tonight's puzzle is another in our occasional books-you-haven't-read-yet series.
(Well, I'm pretty sure most of you haven't read tonight's spotlighted book yet, since it hasn't been published in the US yet. But it's already garnered very good reviews in the UK, where it was published last month. After tonight's puzzle is solved I'll post a link to one of the reviews. Or, if I'm slow to post (as I often am), just Google the words in tonight's verticals once you've solved the puzzle (which will provide you with all but the last word of the book title, and you shouldn't have any trouble figuring out what that is).
My internet at home is still not fixed, but that's not a problem with my posting this diary as I'm not home this week. I'm plant-and-pet-sitting for friends, and their internet works fine, so I should be able to take part in tonight's and tomorrow's puzzle parties. (And with luck I'll have internet access at home again early next week.)
But you didn't come here to hear my complaining about computer problems. At least I assume you didn't, and that you're here for the puzzle. So here it is.
If you're familiar with how JulieCrostics work, have at it! If you're new and don't yet know how JulieCrostics work, you can find complete instructions in the bottom part of the diary.
Tonight's puzzle has 7 rows, with 3 answers per row.
1. bed
2. UK inhabitant
3. Mexican snack
4. online videos
5. remain
6. delicious
7. common Tea Party mental problem
8. commonly heard at auctions
9. keeps
10. topper
11. stop
12. close securely
13. inquire
14. Texas and North Carolina senators, informally
15. gives approval
16. right-wing radio talk show host, typically
17. obi
18. hide away
19. popular source of humor
20. created
21. dropsy
For the benefit of anyone new to Sunday Puzzle, here are instructions for solving JulieCrostics.
In JulieCrostics you are given a set of clues, such as these:
To solve the puzzle, figure out the answers to the clues and enter them into a grid of rows and columns, like so:
All the rows in the grid will be the same length (i.e. have the same number of answers). All the answers in a column will be the same length (i.e. have the same number of letters). And the words in each column are one letter longer than the words in the column to its left. That's because each word in a row has all the letters of the word before it plus one new letter.
For instance, if the clues for a row were
1. say what's not so
2. resting
3. concede
then the answers might be LIE, IDLE (= LIE + D), and YIELD (= IDLE + Y)
Write the added letter in the space between the word which doesn't have it and the word which does. For the row in the example you'd write:
1. LIE D 2. IDLE Y 3. YIELD
When you have solved all the clues and written down all the added letters, the added letters will form columns that spell out a message of some sort. It might be a person's name, it might be the title of a book, it might be a familiar phrase, or it might be a series of related words. Your challenge is to solve all the clues, fill in the vertical columns, and figure out what the vertical columns mean.
In the example given, the verticals read DAIL YKOS. With proper spacing and capitalization that spells out Daily Kos!