Fully Booked 3

A teen's novel branch of government (6)

University book English communist transported in a mini-cab (6)

Jo Ash strangely clutching uniform in book (6)

Book occasionally drains ideals (6)

Book weird threes (6)

BOOK in cryptics often clues the letter B. So, "Book bird, a real dish (4)" = (B = book) + (OWL = bird) = BOWL = dish. BOOKS, meanwhile, can be BB or BS, but in the more traditional puzzles often denotes NT (i.e. New Testament) or OT (i.e. Old Testament). For example, "You and I, taking books, departed (4)" = (WE = you and I) + (NT = books) = WENT = departed. Occasionally, BOOK also denotes a book of the Bible, e.g. "Book not so cruel (8)" would be (RUTH = book) + (LESS = not so) = RUTHLESS = cruel. If you like my crosswords, then you'll LOVE the Cryptic Mystic's YouTube channel, which is a brilliant resource for cryptic newbies and has been kind enough to feature a few of my puzzles https://www.youtube.com/@The_Cryptic_Mystic

Really enjoying these focused exercises, thx!

Thank you for such a lovely comment x

Loved this! Biblical!

Thank you (although, to be fair, when BOOK comes up in the Biblical sense in crosswords, in my experience it is RUTH or EZRA 99% of the time.

5A took me WAY longer than I'd like to admit.

Also, that slight misdirect in 4A given the theme of the puzzle was VERY nice. Fun as ever! :)

That's because I am a FIEND! But thank you so much - such a nice comment, and I hope you continue to enjoy them x

I only recently learned cryptic crosswords existed and I've been finding your puzzles and videos to be great learning tools. They're great fun too, thanks!

Thank you! I can't take any credit whatsoever for the videos - they're by the Cryptic Mystic, with whom I have no affiliation except in as far as he's kindly asked to use a couple of my crosswords, but I think he's brilliant, and I'd recommend him highly to any crossword newb. And I hope you have a long and happy future as a cryptic solver. It is quite addictive x

Ah, I had misread the constructor's notes, silly me. I'm looking forward to that cryptic future!

you ever forget to read a description mid-puzzle and press the back button in the top bar to read it but when you go back your progress resets so you solve it extra-fast because you’ve actually already done most of it? yeah

Sssh! Don't let on - we'd all just assume you're super brainy (as I'm sure you are)

Evidently I need to take more mini-cabs: that one had me flummoxed.

Fully Booked 3

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