Puzzle constructors like Anna Shechtman are pushing to make crosswords more socially and linguistically inclusive. She writes about gender and puzzles in her memoir “The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle.”

A.J. Jacobs' latest research project turned obsession is puzzles. He goes deep into puzzle history and lore in a new book “The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life.”