A quick but fairly fun and informative read, written from a true insider in the crossword-creator community. It's almost as if this book isn't for public consumption at times, because it's so inside-baseball (there's a lot of him chronicling his own fence-mending between factions, and at the end of the book, he makes a loud point of giving out the places in Brooklyn where a lonely and isolated Henry Hook hangs out, with the suggestion strongly implied that people should hunt him down and say hi), but if you're into crosswords, you'll find plenty in this book to dig.
A tawdry, rambling, pun-heavy novel about life among the B-list entertainers and lowlifes living in Cuba in the 1950's. I will spend the rest of my life trying to come up with something that signifies as well as huge swathes of this book does. I can't recommend it highly enough. (It goes in & out of print every year or two, so pick it up while you can.)