Solving time: about 2 hours
This was a nice example of a fairly gentle thematic puzzle. Extra words in clues are a fairly simple way of providing thematic messages, but the idea of using the central letter or pair of letters was a bit of variation from the usual first letter.
I made good progress with solving clues, and fairly soon had a few names of writers emerging – “C DICKENS” probably came first. I was then a bit stuck with about half a dozen clued answers left and the unresolved question of why eight names were linked with nine unclued entries. Looking at the unclued answers, I saw that CARDS, BLEAK, MIRTH and SLEEP all matched book titles with ‘House of ___’ or ‘____ House’, and that M Dobbs, E Wharton were also among the names – I couldn’t remember whether Wharton’s one was Mirth or Sleep. This led on to spotting that two of the nine unclued answers could be POOH CORNER. So the eight books are:
The House of the SPIRITS – I Allende
The House of SLEEP – J Coe
BLEAK House – C Dickens
House of CARDS – M Dobbs
The House on the STRAND – M Du Maurier
The House at POOH CORNER – A A Milne
The Fall of the House of USHER – E A Poe
The House of MIRTH – E Wharton
On then to the bit I sometimes struggle with – finding the phrase in the grid. The enumeration (10,6) made HOUSES easy to guess as the second word, and looking for this in the grid , I first found HOU in YOGHOURT, with SES as you turned west from the O. I then saw PUBLISHING, forming the rest of a house shape, and fairly soon saw the other (slightly different-shaped) house, using the BLIS in BLIST and SHING in SHINGLE. One or two quibbles and questions below.
Nearly forgot the last detail – explaining the title. Something you should always ponder for thematic barred-grid puzzles. In this case, a pun on “Random House”.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | I | spike | W((n)ORTH)ILY |
| 10 | AL | call | ARRAS – hidden |
| 11 | LE | asleep | ANNO – O for A in Anna |
| 12 | N | any | IONESCO = (cohesion – H)* |
| 13 | D | self-doubt | ICE BAG = (gibe, C, A)* |
| 14 | E | gathering | RE(SUM)E – ree = Scots for a back yard is one to remember |
| 17 | J | marijuana | IRKSOME – I,R,smoke* |
| 19 | CO | unrecorded | BOLERO – R in (oboe,L)* |
| 20 | E | spent | TISHRI – (archivist – vac)* |
| 24 | C | yucky | VAS – hidden |
| 25 | D | cedar | ELDER – 2 defs |
| 26 | I | idolizing | U.(SER)S. |
| 29 | CK | shocking | R.(I)E.M. |
| 30 | EN | recommendation | BAN,T.U. |
| 32 | S | muses | COLUMBIC – M in bucolic* – not quite sure how ‘maiden over bucolic wandering’ indicates the containment of M though. |
| 33 | M | crumpet | L(IT.)E |
| 34 | D | overdosed | REMS – (Mrs E.)* |
| 37 | OB | robe | HONEY BEAR – (her on eBay)* – but I don’t understand how “* perhaps” is the def. I assume something weird happened in the final typesetting. |
| 38 | B | amber | S(H)INGLE |
| 39 | S | basal | TELOMERE – (O, elm tree)* |
| 40 | DD | waddle | SKIS – move the final S in KISS |
| Down | |||
| 1 | U | featuring | LOO,E |
| 2 | M | brimful | EONS – hidden |
| 3 | A | again | PAS – 2 defs |
| 5 | U | tough | O,ROPES,A – it really is a float used on a minesweeper |
| 6 | RI | grim | RAILBUS = burials* |
| 7 | E | sheep | H(A)E |
| 8 | RA | garage | IN,B,REED |
| 9 | A | slams | YOGH,OUR,’T |
| 15 | M | seeming | MORE SUO = (Sue room)* |
| 16 | IL | Emilia | MOPER – (emperor – ER)* |
| 18 | N | canal | (t)RIP |
| 21 | EE | freely | S(LIM(e))S |
| 22 | A | dismantle | SEMI – hidden |
| 23 | PO | report | VENTAIL – another query here if trouble = AIL, how does preposterous = VENT? |
| 24 | E | spent | VAC,U,OLE |
| 27 | EW | time-worn | SAITH,E – I know the saithe and pollock are both fish, so assume they must be the same fish. |
| 28 | H | patchwork | C(LEES)E |
| 30 | A | prank | B-LIST/BLIST – two defs |
| 31 | R | early | TENNO – another name for the emperor of Japan |
| 35 | T | writers | MYTH – (nymphet – pen)* |
| 36 | ON | lone | RANI – hidden |
32a: M is simply the abbrev. of “maiden over”.
37a: I assumed that the asterisk referred to an unclued entry, i.e. POOH
23d: I don’t recall the entire clue, but the two syllables were clued in reverse order, and “preposterous” literally means “putting the last first”.
To be precise (and I assume this was what HolyGhost was referring to) the unclued answer POOH had an asterisk where the number would normally have been, which baffled me till I twigged the clue.