Puzzle Mania: Hours of Fun for the Puzzle-Obsessed

What’s your favorite digital puzzle? The Mini, Wordle, Spelling Bee or Connections?

And who dreamed up these addictive games?

These and many more questions were answered by NY Times Digital Puzzles Editor Joel Fagliano at Barnes and Noble in Eastchester on November 4, 2025. Fagliano, who visited Eastchester to launch his new book, Puzzle Mania, explained that the genesis of the NY Times suite of online games was a special print section of puzzles that was periodically included with the paper edition. They were so popular that the NY Times decided to develop them as games that could be played online.

Today there is a team of seven puzzle editors at the paper who formulate the puzzles, test them and share feedback. Every team member works on the traditional crossword puzzle offered in the daily paper in addition to their digital puzzles. Each week the team receives 150 puzzles from the public and each one is reviewed and critiqued. Seven of these are accepted for publication each month.

Fagliano developed a passion for puzzles as a kid growing up in a puzzle-loving family who played word games and Scrabble. After his mother gifted him a NY Times Crossword Puzzle Book at age 11, he learned how to solve them and ultimately became interested in formulating his own. In high school he started submitting puzzles to the NY Times and experienced a long series of rejections until one was accepted for publication during his senior year.

During college, he asked NY Times Puzzle Master Will Shortz if he could work as his intern and ended up coming back every summer. He said, “It was a combination of going for it and luck.”

After graduation, he got a job at the Times where he developed “The Mini,” the first new puzzle from the Times since 1942. The small crossword features a maximum of five letter words during the week and expands to seven letters on Saturdays. They are intended to be solved quickly.

What has he learned from Shortz? First to respect the ideas of all colleagues and second to “put the puzzle solver first.”

His new book, designed to delight puzzle lovers of all skill levels, includes word puzzles, logic puzzles, mechanical puzzles and more – all original for the book. In addition to the puzzles published in the book, there is a large removable giant crossword that can be spread out and shared with friends and family. The 223-page book will supply hours, if not weeks of fun for all the puzzlers in your life.

It’s beautifully and colorful and you may have a hard time putting ink on this deluxe edition.

Get one for yourself or as a gift at Barnes and Noble or at PuzzleManiaBook.com.