AV Club untimed (Amy) 
[3.75 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
LAT 4:15 (Gareth) 
[2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT untimed (Amy) [2.65 avg; 13 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker tk (Kyle) 
[3.92 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.25 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 10:11 (Emily) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 6:17 (Eric) [3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Chad Hazen & Jeff Chen’s New York Times crossword–Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 11/5/25 – no. 1105
Solved this one while catching up on Slow Horses (such a good spy show!), hence untimed.
The theme revealer is THE LIKES OF YOU, clued, 52A. [Someone comparable … or what 20-, 26- and 43-Across may be, in different senses]. 20a DOPPELGANGERS are people who look like you. SECRET CRUSHES are people you like. And web PAGE BOOKMARKS are the sites you’ve liked. Unusual theme, but certainly fresh and unexpected.
One really tricky crossing, where 18a. [Indigenous Canadians of Labrador], INNU meets 7D. [Astronaut ___ Lee Fisher, the first mother to fly into space], ANNA. An post-Apollo astronaut from 40+ years ago, we’re expected to know that? With this INNU crossing? I tried ANYA first, thinking that INYU sounded plausible, given Inuk/Inuit. Never heard of the Innu before. There are so many more familiar ANNAs that could have appeared here instead of the astronaut, who is notable but not a household name. It’s a Wednesday puzzle, for crying out loud! Not a Newsday “Saturday Stumper” where you expect to tough out difficult crossing clues. I should not have needed to run the alphabet to find the correct letter here.
Fave fill: JOB POSTING, BUNGEE, NO ONIONS (this is not at all green-painty in my book! am a big fan of NO ONIONS orders), STUNT CAR. Not so keen on the adjective IGNEOUS being clued mounishly ([Rock that’s hot, then cool]).
3.5 stars from me. Mad that the editing put/left that ANNA clue there.
Kiran Pandey’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Two-Shape Solution”–Amy’s recap
AV Club Classic crossword solution, 11/5/25 – “Two-Shape Solution”
This one’s also untimed, inadvertently. Forgot that the Crossword Nexus Solver isn’t set to automatically turn the timer on.
The revealer here is 58a. [Perform a certain mathematically impossible operation … or a totally possible instruction for completing parts of this puzzle], SQUARE THE CIRCLE. I don’t know what that means mathematically, but cruciverbally, it means that four circular things appear in crossword squares, rebus-style.
I had trouble with the first themer, because I wanted 18d FONT with its question-marked clue to be where the rebus square is. Tricky to have PO{ORB}OY crossing new-to-me MAGIC F{OR B}EGINNERS there, when BEGINNERS and POBOY look so right (despite the POORBOY clue calling for an un-shortened name). Oof! Managed to get the rebuses figured out for STA{RING} AT and E{RIN G}RAY, HANNI{BAL L}ECTER crossing TRI{BAL L}AND, and WORT{H A LO}T with S{HALO}M, though I’m not wild about WORTH A LOT as an entry.
Fave fill: “GATHER ‘ROUND,” FREE SPIRITS.
Four stars from me.
Drew Donovan’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Sportswear” — Eric’s Review
Drew Donovan’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Sportswear” — 11/5/25
This appears to be Drew Donovan’s crossword debut in a publication covered by Diary of a Crossword Fiend — congratulations! Compound nouns associated with different sports are remained as pieces of jewelry and are clued correspondingly:
- 15A [Bling for Caitlin Clark?] BASKETBALL HOOPS
- 22A [Bling for Pete Weber?] BOWLING PIN
- 56A [Bling for Laila Ali?] BOXING RING
- 62A [Bling for Shohei Ohtani?] BASEBALL DIAMOND
It’s a solid enough theme set, and the athletes used in the clues are all well-known enough that even a non-sports fan like me knew three out of four. The grid is a bit choppy, with stair-stepping blocks in the middle five rows cutting off any opportunity for Down answers longer than six letters.
Other stuff:
- 6A
[Papal crown] TIARA Talk about bling. The last pope to wear it was Paul VI, in 1963. - 50A [Latin American inn] POSADA I don’t remember seeing that in a crossword before.
- 4D [Hayseed] YOKEL That answer always seems so pejorative to me.
- 11D [They mean the world to us] GLOBES Cute clue.
Mark Budovitch and Andrea Carla Michaels’ Universal crossword, “Step on the Scale” — pannonica’s précis
Universal • 11/5/25 • Wed • “Step on the Scale” • Budovitch, Michaels • solution • 20251105
- 57aR [1965 Julie Andrews film, and a phonetic hint to the ends of 17-, 25- and 44-Across] THE SOUND OF MUSIC.
- 17a. [Earned tons of money] RAKED IN THE DOUGH.
- 25a. [Celebrity chef known for “30 Minute Meals”] RACHAEL RAY.
- 44a. [“Pretend I’m not ere”] DON’T MIND ME.
Do, re, mi. Doubly apt revealer because we have homophones. It’s a little distracting regarding the first theme answer because in slang, dough as a term for money has been further extended to do-re-mi.
- 36a [They’re often glossed over!] LIPS. Exclamation mark not really necessary, I feel.
- 38d [Awful smell] ODOR. My (33d) USUAL criticism hereon.
Catherine Cetta’s USA Today Crossword, “It’s Up to You!” — Emily’s write-up
You got this.
USA Today, November 05, 2025, “It’s Up to You!” by Catherine Cetta
Theme: each downs themer contains –USTI–, or going up “itsu”
Themers:
- 3d. [“You really do have to”], IMUSTINSIST
- 14d. [Information volunteered to a hotline, perhaps], ANONYMOUSTIP
- 10d. [“You almost missed the deadline!”], JUSTINTIME
Today’s themer set includes IMUSTINSIST, ANONYMOUSTIP, and JUSTINTIME. Being in the downs, I already had some crossings when I got to each and they filled fairly easily.
Favorite fill: TEMPEH, TAKEANAP, and PEEPER
Stumpers: SAIDSO (needed crossings), SEEDLESS (also needed crossings), and CULTURED (also needed crossings)
A bit tricker of a puzzle for me today–the cluing overall stumped me more than others. For much of it, I was slowly filling in the grid and working between multiple crossings to complete it. I enjoyed the fresh fill, once it came together. How did everyone else do?
3.5 stars
~Emily
Terry Sun & Shannon Rapp’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s theme summary
Terry Sun & Shannon Rapp deliver a typical mid-week LA Times theme type. Explained at CLUBSANDWICH, each of four other long answers in this 16-wide puzzle, spell out a “___ CLUB” on their outer edges – NIGHT, COMEDY, CHESS and GLEE. So:
- [“Little chance of finishing soon”, NOENDINSIGHT]
- [Chicken soup or ginger tea, COLDREMEDY]
- [Performer who often plays a protagonist’s best friend, CHARACTERACTRESS]
- [Without wheat, rye or barley], GLUTENFREE
Gareth
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
The concept of exploring the various meanings of LIKE is cool. It’s one of those words that baffles an ESL learner, as the meanings keep piling up… But I’m not sure it was perfectly executed. DOPPELGANGERS nicely captures one meaning of LIKE– as in “similar” or “alike”, but the other two theme answers feel like they capture the same alternate meaning: “being partial to”, but to various degrees- you like a topic so you BOOKMARK the PAGE and your really like someone and have a secret crush. To my mind, those are on the same dimension. A third meaning of LIKE may be “for example”– e.g. “I love science and enjoy subjects like physics and biology”.
And then there was ANNA and the INNU (sounds like a good title for a children’s book).
I chuckled at “Rock that’s hot, then cool “, just because once again it shows the quirks of the language. The first time I heard someone was “cool”, I thought it was an insult.
Well put.
INNU is a gimme for culturally-aware solvers. It’s important to know North American native peoples if one is American or Canadian.
Please check your blind spots.
Thank you.
All of them? Every single one? There are several here in Maine that I’d never heard of until I moved here, and why would I?
The Bureau of Indian Affairs officially recognizes 574 Native American tribes in the U.S. – should I know them all?
Wikipedia says the INNU population is just under 30,000. To be culturally aware, should I know the name of every North American city with a population of at least 30,000? For reference, Natick, MA has a population of 37,000 (I know that one because of its crossworld infamy as a place most people shouldn’t be expected to have heard of).
I find it interesting what gets considered a good learning opportunity vs unfair trivia. Are solvers incapable of expanding their repertoire beyond OTOE, UTE, and CREE?
I don’t mind learning something from a crossword, and I don’t mind expanding my repertoire. But Georgina’s comment seems to suggest that if a solver is not familiar with INNU, out of the gate, they’re not “culturally aware” – and I reject that proposition.
Native cultures take a back seat to other “people of color”.
There’s a hierarchy.
Rude comment.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
We all have our own unique funds of knowledge and mine grows every week. No need to chastise a person because of what they do and don’t know.
You must be new around here.
“Georgina,” you can quit snarking at the bloggers here or get banned from commenting. It’s so tiresome.
OK “Amy Reynaldo”.
You should thank me for adding some life to your online nursing home for the humorless and perpetually offended.
But it’s your dull playground. So ban me already.
Amy, I just want to thank you for hosting this platform that I read almost everyday, thanks to Eric for turning me on to it. I know I’m not alone.
NYT: PAGE BOOKMARKS sucks a lot and ruins the puzzle.
My thought exactly. They’re just ‘bookmarks.’
Puzzle: Universal; Rating: 3.5 stars
A simple theme, maybe even a little silly, but it made me chuckle when I looked back at it.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2.5 stars
Think the trolls are moving in here. Anyway, I wasn’t a huge fan of this one. The theme didn’t really land for me, and ALOT and ATON in the same grid probably shouldn’t happen.
It is nice to see Jeff Chen’s byline – I enjoy his Squeezy puzzles.
NYT review says, “Not so keen on the adjective IGNEOUS being clued mounishly”
What is the meaning of mounishly?
My guess is it’s just a typo and the M should be an N.
But it confused me, too.
NYT: I found it particularly unexpectedly challenging for a Wednesday.
About halfway through the puzzle last night, I got too sleepy to finish. Coming back this morning, the NE seemed to take forever to figure out because I misinterpreted the [Snagged] clue (I wanted TORE or TORN) and couldn’t remember the rock until I had TOOK.
Amy, I’m confused by “Not so keen on the adjective IGNEOUS being clued mounishly . . . .”
“Mounishly”? Did you mean “Nounishly”?
It’s clearly “nounishly.” The clue could work for a noun, like BASALT, or the adjective IGNEOUS. As the latter, there’s an implied “Like,” which is common in speech and occasionally occurs in clues. The clue is valid, and I don’t think Amy is saying otherwise. Only that it’s a bit tricky. You never know what to expect on Wednesday,
> Forgot that the Crossword Nexus Solver isn’t set to automatically turn the timer on.
You can change that in the settings!
Puzzle: The New Yorker; Rating: 4 stars
Such a smooth themeless New Yorker from Robyn!
I can rarely break 3 minutes on a Tuesday NYT, but Robyn’s breezy themelesses with easy clues? 2:58 today.