The book is subtitled Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive SCRABBLE Players.

Fatsis, a sports reporter for The Wall Street Journal, introduces the reader to the world of competitive Scrabble through a narrative of his slow transformation from "a good living room player" into a player ranked as expert by the National Scrabble Association.

The book also covers the history of the game, how tournaments are run, and the background politics of the Scrabble scene.

The new edition (18th printing) includes a new 30-page afterword about what's happened to the game in the last decade: where-are-they-now on the main characters, here-they-are-now on the new generation of players, corporate politics, dictionary changes, and much more.

[1] The documentary film Word Wars (2004), while not directly related to the book, includes many of the same players.