Very fun! I solved up to 7 naively, then got suspicious when I found other palindromes in the grid. Fully solved 7 and 8. After 9 I went back and re-solved all the earlier ones.
I think I have a mistake on the final board though: https://i.imgur.com/xtb99aY; the letters extracted seem to be in the wrong order?
Glad you enjoyed! Sounds like you pretty much did the intended "hard route" through the book -- puzzle 7 was the earliest intended place to start solving. If you solved the first 10 without using puzzle 11, that's pretty impressive!
Regarding puzzle 12: Nope, it's correct. Common mistake! You just need to highlight the 12th word. : )
