Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Which Italian novel for children has been adapted in over The Adventures of Pinocchio
240 languages?
Which famous novelist was Governor General of Canada? John Buchan
Peter Mark Roget, a nineteenth century British physician, Thesaurus
is best known for what type of book?
Whose fourth novel featuring Robert Langdon, is a Dan Brown
mystery thriller called Inferno? Hilary Mantel
Who wrote the 2012 Booker Prize winning book Bring Up Don Quixote
the Bodies?
Which book, first published in 1605, has sold more han Anne of Green Gables
300 million copies worldwide?
Which 1908 novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery, is Black Beauty
considered a children's novel? Flowers in the Attic
In a famous novel, who has a mother called Duchess
(nicknamed 'Pet')?
Which book is the first in the Dollanganger Series, and is Zorro
followed by Petals on the Wind and If There Be Thorns?
The Curse of Capistrano, a 1919 story by Johnston
McCulley, is the first work to feature which fictional
character?
Who wrote the book The Strange Case of Dr Robert Louis Stevenson
Jekyll and Mr Hyde?
Name the beautiful young man who becomes The Thirty-Nine Steps
the subject of a portrait by society painter, Basil
Hallward?
Which Irish born novelist, playwright, and poet, lived Samuel Beckett
in Paris for most of his adult life and wrote in both
French and English? Charles Lamb
Mark Twain
R.L.Stevenson
Charles Dickens
Jawaharlal Nehru
1.Name the Shakespearean play in which you get to meet twins, - a brother and a
sister?
3. William Shakespeare, the greatest of all playwrights has written 38 plays. Which
is believed to be the last play written by Shakespeare?
“The Tempest”
4. Which is the most important scene in the Shakespearean play The Merchant of
Venice?
The Court Scene, where Portia comes disguised as a lawyer and saves
Antonio!
1.“I have completed my work.” What is the tense used in this sentence?
Interjections
4. My elder brother came there. Pick out the adjective from this sentence:- elder
1. We all are familiar with James Bond movies. Who was the actor who played the
first James Bond 007? -
Sean Connery
2. What is the name of the character who wanted to become a nun, but ended up
taking care of seven children in the movie, “Sound of Music”?
Maria
3. What is the name of the Lion Prince (the lead character) in the movie “Lion
King”?
Simba
Remy
1. Who is the world famous author, who is the youngest recipient of Nobel Prize for
Literature? He was just 42 , when he received the Nobel Prize!
Rudyard Kipling, The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Rudyard
Kipling "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of
imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which
characterize his creations. He bagged this prestigious award in the year
1907.
2. Arundhathi Roy won the Booker Prize in the year 1997. Can you name the novel
for which she was awarded this prestigious award?
3. Salman Rushdie won the Booker prize in 1981. Name the work for which he
bagged this prestigious award?
Midnight’s Children
4. Who is the famous Indian English writer, who was awarded the Sahithya Academy
Award , for his novel, “The Guide”?
R.K.Narayan - he won the award in 1958, later the novel was made into a
movie, starring the evergreen hero of Hindi Cinema, Mr.Devanand.
1. You may have come across words or phrases that can be read the same way in
either direction. What are such words called?
Palindromes
2. Sometimes in poems or stories, the writers attribute human traits to non-living
things. What is this figure of speech called?
Personification
3.What is the detailed description of the life history of a person, written by the same
person called ?
Autobiography
4. What is the name given to the study of speech sounds or spoken language?
Phonetics
It was the last round. Each team was given 1 minute to answer a set of questions.
Set I
4. Give one word for the phrasal verb “Give Up”- Abandon
5. Which is the theatre in London, which is now a museum and is associated with
Shakespeare?- The Globe
6. What do you call a person who sees the darker side of things? Pessimist
14.What is the name given to a noun that is the name of some particular person or
place? – Proper Noun
17.Who is the famous author whose pen name is O.Henry? William Sydney
Porter
Set II
2. Miles to go before I sleep – To which poem does this line belong to?- Stopping by
the woods on a
snowy evening
4. Give one word for the Phrasal Verb “ Call on” – visit/meet
5. Which is the third oldest surviving university in the world? – Oxford University
throw stones.
14. What is the name given to a word used instead of a noun? - Pronoun
15. Name the fictional character who was carved from a piece of pine:- Pinocchio
16. What is the name given to a lengthy, narrative poem, containing the details of
heroic deeds- Epic
17. What is the famous writer whose pen name is Saki? H.H.Munroe
Set III
1. Who is the author of the famous short story “ Last Leaf”? – O.Henry
3. Give the meaning of the idiom “To put all the eggs in one basket”? to risk
everything together
4. Give one word for the phrasal verb “go on with”- continue
14. What is the name given to the nouns that we can only think of? – Abstract
Nouns
15. Who is the famous mythological character who is believed to have stolen fire
from Zues? - Prometheus
16. What is the name given to a play with a sad ending? - Tragedy
17. Who is the famous writer whose pen name is J.K.Rowling ? – Joanne Rowling
Set IV
Canterbury Tales
6. What do you call a person who sees the brighter side of things? - Optimist
14. What is the name given to a noun that we can see, feel or taste? – Concrete
Nouns
15. Who is the mythological character who fell in love with his own reflection?
– Narcissus
17. Who is the famous writer whose pen name is George Eliot? – Mary Ann Evans
Audience Round
1.Which is the only word in English which will be pronounced the same, even when
the last four letters are removed?
Queue
2. In English, there are just 4 words which begin with ‘dw’. The first one is dwarf, the
second one is dwell, the third one is dwindle. Which is the fourth one?
203. Name the castle where Spenser lived and finished the first three
books of Fairy Queen.
(b) Kilcolman
207. He was a musician in the court of Henry VIII. His aim was to amuse
and not moralise. His interludes were hilarious and they paved the way for
comedy. Name the writer and his work.
209. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves that we
are underlings." Who said this and in which play?
210. Whom would you assign the line "Drink to me only with thane eyes."?
(b)William Shakespeare
(d)Thomas Nash
211. One contemporary of Jonson had a bitter and extravagant style. In his
Poetaster Jonson gives him a purge which makes him vomit his learned
and bombastic words. Who is this poet?
(c) Marston
212. About whom these words are uttered: "Cover her face; mine eyes
dazzle: She died young."
214. "Farewell ! Othello's occupation's gone", What does this cry signify?
(c) The British Parliament closed the theatre as Puritans came to power
(b) Griselda
216. How would you classify The Knight of the Burning Pestle by
Beaumont and Fletcher?
(d) Farce
217. This public place was made famous and immortal by Shakespeare,
Seldon, Donne, Beaumont, Fletcher and Ben Jonson. Name it.
219. In the first three plays of Marlowe each of the heroes is consumed by
a burning passion which leads to his doom. In The Jew of Malta, it is the
greed for riches; in Dr. Faustus it is inordinate thirst for knowledge. Which
passion is depicted in his Tamburlaine?
(a) Edward II
(d) Dido
(a) 12
223. Which poem of Spenser was praised by' Coleridge for its "Swan-Like
Movement"?
(b) Prothalamion
(a) 1551-1560
(b) 1552-1599
(c) 1557-1590
(d) 1552-1596
"Blow, blow, thou winter wind Thou art not so unkind As man's
ingratitude..." ?
227. Which work records Spenser's experiences of his first visit to England
in 1589-90 when he was introduced by Sir Walter Raleigh to the Queen?
(a) Strophes
(c) Prothalamion
(d) Amoretti
228. Who wrote the romance Rosalinda which supplied the plot for
Shakespeare's As You Like It?
(a) Greene
(b) Lodge
(c) Lyly
(d) Nash
(b) Leicester
(c) Harvey
231. Given below are some of early tragedies. Out of these one was full of
"horror". However, it became popular and remained so till the end of the
century. Ben Jonson refers to it in his Everyman in his Humor Identify it.
(a) 37
(b) 36
(c) 21
(d) 154
(d) Sonnets
235. In 1609 an unusual event took place which gave a theme to
Shakespeare for one of his enchanting plays. An English ship disappeared,
and all aboard were given up for lost. However, a year later the sailors
came back. They had been ship-wrecked on the unknown Bermudas and
were terrified by mysterious noises which they thought came from the
devils. This account was used by Shakespeare in
(a) 150
(b) 154
(c) 120
(d) 130
245. Name the writer of the Elizabethan period who completed Marlowe's
Hero and Leander and collaborated with Jonson and Marston in Eastward
Ho I
(b)George Chapman
246. Which of Ben Jonson's work is a seething satire on false poets of the
age?
(b)Poetaster
(d) Epicene or The Silent Woman , Who among the following was a friend of
247. Edmund Spenser and offered hints for the perpetration of Spenser's
The Fairies Queen indicating a plan of 12 books in all that was never
completed?
(a) Bacon
(b) Daniel
(c) Drayton
(d) Raleigh
(a) Proclus
(b) Basilisk
(c) Musidorus
(d) Earaches
The following lines are the answer to what book's titular explanation?
...
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,
When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings -
...
Angelou took the title from a poem of Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African-American
poet whose works she had admired for years.
(Acknowledgement)
What 1991 book that ends with Vladek reuniting with Anja after a long separation
contains in its epigraph Hitler's quotation "The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but
they are not human."?
Known for telling a holocaust story with people represented as animals, it became
the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer.
(Acknowledgement)
If you see the phrases "O, Draconian devil!", "Oh, Lame Saint!", and "So Dark the
Con of Man", what 2000s bestseller ought to come to mind?
These are some of the clues which steer Langdon to the solution to the mystery.
Nasreddin Hodja
Dostoyevsky
The crime of course has parallels to what happens in the classic Crime and
Punishment.
(Acknowledgement)
Which writer who died in 2013 had a well-publicized "Ten Rules of Writing" that
include "Never open a book with weather" and "Try to leave out the part that
readers tend to skip"?
Elmore Leonard
Among his best-known works are Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Hombre, Mr. Majestyk,
and Rum Punch (which became the movie Jackie Brown directed by Tarantino).
(Acknowledgement)
What 1945 classic satire was rejected for publication by T. S. Eliot as "We have no
conviction ... that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political
situation at the present time..."?
In the letter, Eliot argued that Orwell's "view, which I take to be Trotskyite, is not
convincing." He took particular umbrage with Orwell's characterization of the pigs
on Animal Farm. Napoleon, a Berkshire boar thought to be based on Stalin,
triumphs, despite being the novel's baddie. He battles with Snowball, a much nicer
pig modeled on Leon Trotsky, who genuinely works for the good of the other
animals. It is Napoleon's bully boy tactics which seem to win the day, while
Snowball is chased off the farm by dogs. This mirrored Trotsky's deportation from
the Soviet Union after he criticized Stalin.
(Acknowledgement)
Give either of the two better known names of the character who takes the following
names in the course of a 19th century novel.
English Chief Clerk, Lord Wilmore, Sinbad the Sailor, Abbé Busoni, Monsieur
Zaccone, Number 34, The Maltese
Sequels featuring which character who originally appeared in a 1913 novel were
published as Glad Books from 1915 onward?
Pollyanna
The Pulitzer-nominated 1979 book The Madwoman in the Attic which examines
Victorian literature from a feminist perspective takes its title from a plot point of
what 1847 novel?
In the novel, Rochester's wife Bertha Mason is kept locked in the attic by her
husband.
(Acknowledgement)
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans
The work was set around three white sharecropping families mired in desperate
poverty at the time of FDR's New Deal.
(Acknowledgement)
In a 1914 mock trial organized by the Dickens Fellowship, the literary character John
Jasper was tried for the murder of which other literary character, presumably to
achieve a closure to an incomplete mystery?
Edwin Drood
G. K. Chesterton, best known for the Father Brown mystery stories, was the judge,
while George Bernard Shaw was the foreman of the jury, made up of other
authors.The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final and incomplete novel by Charles
Dickens in which the focus is on Drood's uncle, choirmaster John Jasper.
(Acknowledgement)
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky a current-day husband and wife team are
known for what type of contribution to literature?
Translations
Most of their translations are of works in Russian, but also French, Italian, and
Greek.
(Acknowledgement)
Writer John Dickson Carr who published many acclaimed thrillers including The
Hollow Man specialized in what sub-genre of detective mysteries?
Locked-room mysteries
The Hollow Man was selected in 1981 as the best locked-room mystery of all time
by a panel of 17 mystery authors and reviewers.
(Acknowledgement)
Which person who supposedly sailed on Lord Ligonier that arrived at Annapolis in
September 1767 had his life dramatized in a book as well as a television series?
(Acknowledgement)
The cellar is described in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play Faust I as the first
place Mephistopheles takes Faust on their travels.
(Acknowledgement)
What are the first two lines of the poem Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox whose next
lines are shown below?
"....................................................
.....................................................
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own..."
The idea for the poem came as she was travelling to attend a ball. On her way to
the celebration, there was a young woman dressed in black sitting across the aisle
from her. The woman was crying. Miss Wheeler sat next to her and sought to
comfort her for the rest of the journey. When they arrived, the poet was so unhappy
that she could barely attend the festivities. As she looked at her own face in the
mirror, she suddenly recalled the sorrowful widow. It was at that moment that she
wrote the opening lines of the poem which was first published in a 1883 issue
of The New York Sun.
(Acknowledgement)
She wrote Portrait of a Killer—Jack the Ripper: Case Closed, which was published in
2002 to much controversy.
(Acknowledgement)
The main elements of what beloved series came from the author's boarding school
experience of lining up in two perfectly straight lines to go anywhere and from his
meeting someone who had their appendix removed?
Lapine, which is derived from the French word for rabbit, is the language spoken by
the characters of what 1972 novel?
Set in south-central England, the story features a small group of rabbits. Although
they live in their natural environment, they are anthropomorphised.
(Acknowledgement)
For the title of his year 2000 book whose plot features a war between Russia and
China, author Tom Clancy used the names of what animals?
The 19th century invention Paige Compositor sought to replace the typewriter but
ended up becoming a failure. Which American author lost nearly all his fortune for
its development?
Mark Twain
He invested not only the bulk of his book profits but also a large portion of the
inheritance of his wife.
(Acknowledgement)
(Acknowledgement)
Who was the English editor and avid compiler of military information who
publishedAll the World's Fighting Ships in 1898?
John F. T. Jane
In an interview to The Paris Review, which author talking about his acclaimed 1989
book said that he used the role of an English butler as a metaphor for emotional
frostiness and reserve?
(Acknowledgement)
When the novel The Mad Tryst is being read at a sitting, the residence that the
dwellers are in begins to collapse in what classic story?
It is considered the best example of Poe's "totality", where every element and detail
is related and relevant.
(Acknowledgement)
Captain George Pollard, Jr., who inspired an all-time great 1851 novel, was the
captain of Essex that was attacked and sunk by what?
(Sperm) whale
Who is the popular author who served as Chancellor of Moratuwa University in Sri
Lanka from 1979 to 2002?
Arthur C. Clarke
Clarke emigrated to Sri Lanka in 1956, largely to pursue his interest in scuba diving.
(Acknowledgement)
In Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. After their adventures, the
travelers emerge out in southern Italy at the Stromboli volcano.
(Acknowledgement)
American poet Dixon Lanier Merritt's well-known limerick is about what bird?
Pelican
It goes:
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week
But I'm damned if I see how the helican!
(Acknowledgement)
Willows
(Acknowledgement)
Rain
It was made into a 1932 film starring Joan Crawford and Walter Huston.
What is the title of the 1984 Leon Uris novel about a Palestinian Arab that refers
both to the physical journey undertaken by him as well as to the psychological
effects of life's experiences?
The Haj
What is the name of the vessel in Paul Gallico's 1969 adventure novel that has been
adapted as a film four times?
Poseidon
The division of Penguin that deals with science fiction and fantasy books started in
2002 with what fantastical avian name? (hint: Stravinsky)
Firebird
Doctor Doolittle
The name of what literary swashbuckler is the answer to the final question in the
Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire?
Aramis
The protagonist Jamal randomly picks the right answer and wins the grand prize.
Farley Mowat's 1963 book that changed public perception of the Arctic wolf
references what Aesop fable in its title?
Which prolific author created a men-only dining group called The Black Widowers for
a series of mystery stories?
Isaac Asimov
Most of the sixty-six stories follow the same basic convention: the six club members
meet once a month at a private room at the Milano restaurant in New York.
(Acknowledgement)
Iago
From Othello.
Snow leopard
A 1986 book on the pivotal role of six Cold War diplomats including Dean Acheson
and George Kennan had what title evoking a certain Biblical trio?
(Acknowledgement)
The unique 'villains' of what celebrated 1963 children's book came about when the
author realized he could not draw horses and was inspired by an Yiddish expression
"vilde chaya" ("wild animals")?
What play by Michael Frayn that takes the name of a European city has the spirits of
Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr and Bohr's wife converse on myriad topics?
Copenhagen (2000)
In Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta the anarchist wears a mask of which
real-life person?
Guy Fawkes
Dostoevsky's The Idiot begins and ends with Prince Myshkin at what type of place?
Sanatorium
As his very goodness precipitates disaster, the story suggests that in a world
obsessed with money, power, and sexual conquest, a sanatorium may be the only
place for a saint.
What is particularly common to the narrators of the Edgar Allan Poe stories The
Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado?
What French novel is said to based on an epidemic that hit the Algerian city of Oran
in 1849?
Camus was born in Algeria and lived for several years there.
A crowned figure clutching a sword and a crosier is seen in the top part on the cover
of what important philosophical work of the 17th century?
Fox Tor in Dartmoor, England is the inspiration for the fictional Grimpen Mire, home
of what fearsome titular beast?
How is Henry Sweet, a rude phonetics scholar known for introducing the Broad
Romicalphabet immortalized in literature?
The award winning 2005 children's book And Tango Makes Three has been subject
to much controversy as it was seen to be highlighting what behavior in the animal
kingdom?
Homosexuality
The book is based on the true story of Roy and Silo, two male Chinstrap Penguins in
New York's Central Park Zoo. Due to the penguin parents being of the same sex,
some adults in the United States have objected to children reading the book.
Whose interview in Life magazine is said to have led to an upsurge in the sales of
James Bond books? After a private screening of Dr. No, he also reportedly said "I
wish I had had James Bond on my staff."
JFK
(Acknowledgement)
In The Shawshank Redemption when the inmates are organizing books for their
library, when told that this classic French novel is about prison break, Morgan
Freeman suggests it be filed under education.
What novel?
In March 1989, Britain and Iran broke diplomatic relations over what reason related
to literature?
In a children's classic by Arthur Ransome published in 1930, what are the names of
the ships sailed by the Walker children and the Blackett children?
The series of 12 books starts with Swallows and Amazons. They involve adventures
by groups of children almost all during the school holidays and mostly in England
and Scotland, between the two World Wars. The stories revolve around outdoor
activities, especially sailing.
(Acknowledgement)
Polydactyl cats (born with more than the usual number of toes) are associated with
which writer who was known for his love for them?
Ernest Hemingway
One of them was first given to him by a ship's captain. Upon Hemingway's death in
1961, his former home in Key West, Florida, became a museum and a home for his
cats, and it currently houses approximately fifty descendants of his cats.
(Acknowledgement)
What atmospheric 1994 American best-seller set in Georgia became known for its
striking cover of the sculpture of a girl holding two bowls?
Roman history
Mommsen published over 1,500 works, and effectively established a new framework
for the systematic study of Roman history. Gibbon's important work The History of
the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was published in six volumes between
1776 and 1788.
The cover of the best-selling book Freakonomics features what two 'distinct'
objects?
What sonnet of Irish poet Seamus Heaney, a tribute to a long-running bulletin from
BBC, starts as "Dogger, Rockall, Malin, Irish Sea"?
In the 2012 opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in London, the shipping
forecast was played in the opening part of the production with Elgar's 'Nimrod' to
represent the British Isles. It is immensely popular with the British public and it daily
attracts listeners in the hundreds of thousands.
(Acknowledgement)
What 1956 children's work, also adapted by Disney, was written when a friend
remarked to an author that her dappled dogs would make a lovely fur coat?
Great short-stories like The Gift of the Magi, The Ransom of Red Chief, and The Cop
and the Anthem are from what collection of O. Henry that was a reaction to a
statement that only four hundred people mattered in New York?
The collection opens as "assertion that there were only 'Four Hundred' people in
New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen-the
census taker-and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in
marking out the field of these little stories of the 'Four Million.'"
What is the name of the castle in Mervyn Peake's series of fantasy novels that has
now come to mean any sprawling complex?
Gormenghast
When a play called The Rules of the Game is about to start on stage, it is
interrupted by half-a-dozen people making outrageous demands.
The 1968 children's story Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel is a humorous take on
the perils of what?
Long names
It is a sort of origin myth about why Chinese names are so short today.
Chekov's play Three Sisters is said to have been inspired by which real life siblings?
Brontë sisters
The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money make up what trilogy of 'American'
literature?
It covers the historical development of American society during the first three
decades of the twentieth century.
Jim Corbett in whose honor India's first national park was renamed in 1957 is
famous for doing what?
Corbett authored the Man-Eaters of Kumaon, Jungle Lore and other books
recounting his hunts and experiences, which enjoyed much critical acclaim and
commercial success. He later became a conservationist.
George Orwell in his whimsical 1946 essay Decline of the English Murders considers
high profile cases like Dr. Palmer of Rugeley, Neill Cream, and several more but
leaves out whose notable spree saying it was "in a class by itself"?
The essay is not essentially about murders, but about British habits.
Misselthwaite Manor is the chief locale of what beloved children's novel that tells
the coming of age story of Mary Lennox?
The garden is the book's central symbol, inspired by Burnett's interest in Mary Baker
Eddy's Christian Science theories. The secret garden at Misselthwaite Manor is the
site of both the near-destruction and the subsequent regeneration of a family.
(Acknowledgement)
He wrote his plays in Danish (the common written language of Denmark and
Norway).
(Acknowledgement)
What care-free place was said to have been inspired by the writings of National
Geographic explorer Joseph Rock who traveled widely in Tibet in the 1920s?
The remote communities Rock visited show many similarities to the fictional
Shangri-La.
The year 1819 is significant for lovers of English poetry because of the publication
of six famous odes by whom?
Keats wrote the first five poems, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode on Indolence, Ode on
Melancholy, Ode to a Nightingale, and Ode to Psyche during the spring, and he
composed To Autumn in September.
(Acknowledgement)
In what great 20th century novel does Rose of Sharon having lost her baby offer
milk from her breasts to a starving man?
Jack Kerouac
Though sales were also poor at first, Kerouac's introduction helped it reach a larger
audience because of the popularity of the Beat phenomenon.
What 1907 supposedly children's book contains some not-so politically correct tales
like Matilda: Who told Lies, and was Burned to Death and Jim: Who ran away from
his Nurse, and was eaten by a Lion?
It is a parody of the cautionary tales that were popular in the 19th century.
Not many have heard the Canadian deathrock band 'A Spectre Is Haunting Europe'
but the publication from whose first line the band took its name has definitely been
heard. What influential 1848 work?
The work begins 'A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of communism. All the
powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope
and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.'
In Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola, the children's tale of magic gone awry, a town in
Italy is buried in an avalanche of what?
Pasta
What 1927 German novel details the experiences of Harry Heller who tries to
reconcile his conflicting persona of a high spiritual nature as well as a low beastly
spirit?
Steppenwolf by Hesse
Roma - $97,000
Moss - $22,000
Levene - $82,000 (then erased to nothing)
Aaronow - $4000
What play has the above appear on a blackboard in the stage scenery in an act?
The story tells the tale of an introverted academic who happens upon a strange
whistle which when blown unleashes a supernatural force.
At the funeral of former Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau in 2000, his eldest son
referenced a literary work and said "___ ___ ___ ___, ___ ___ ___. He has kept his
promises and earned his sleep." What are the missing words?
After the fall of Troy, Aeneas wanders around various places including hell and
reaches Italy. Hence whoever wrote about his adventures must be familiar with the
realms of hell.
Which literary character got his name from the wolves of Seeonee Hills as they
thought he jumped around like a little frog just as they saved him from the clutches
of a tiger? (hint: the tiger would be his main enemy in the story)
He is a feral child from Pench area in Central India who originally appeared in
Rudyard Kipling's short story In the Rukh and then went on to become the most
prominent and memorable character in The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle
Book. Lost by his parents in the Indian jungle during a tiger attack, he is adopted by
the wolves Mother (Raksha) and Father Wolf, who call him Mowgli the Frog because
of his lack of fur and his refusal to sit still.
What is the missing name in Chinese writer Wang Dulu's five-part epic wuxia-
romance series, often called the Crane-Iron Series?
Ang Lee's 2000 film includes episodes and information from some of the other
books in the series, apart from the novel which shares the same title as the film.
What most-rejected 1974 bestseller describes the 17-day journey of the author (who
calls himself Phaedrus) and his son Chris from Minnesota to California?
What 1941 short-story by a noted South American writer is said to have introduced
the genre of hypertext fiction, one in which the story can be read in multiple ways?
The story of what acclaimed 1962 novel is that of writer Anna Wulf who keeps a
record of her life in four journals and attempt to tie them all together in a fifth one?
The book also contains a powerful anti-war and anti-Stalinist message, an extended
analysis of communism and the Communist Party in England from the 1930s to the
1950s, and a famed examination of the budding sexual and women's liberation
movements.
What 1949 American work that is now a benchmark of the ecological movement is
best known for the quote "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity,
stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."?
Describing the land around the author's home in Sauk County, Wisconsin, the
collection of essays advocate Leopold's idea of a "land ethic", or a responsible
relationship existing between people and the land they inhabit. In a 1990 poll of the
membership by the American Nature Study Society, A Sand County Almanac and
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring stand alone as the two most venerated and significant
environmental books of the 20th century.
The following dialogue, potent enough to make one give up quizzing, is addressed
to Guy Montag in what dystopian classic of the 20th century?
"Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular
songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram
them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they fell
stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking,
they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of
that sort don't change."
Bradbury has stated that the novel is not about censorship, but a story about how
television destroys interest in reading literature, which leads to a perception of
knowledge as being composed of factoids, partial information devoid of context.
What 300 BC book from ancient Greece that was essential reading for students for
centuries was said to be second only to the Bible in the number of editions
published?
Euclid's Elements
(Acknowledgement)
The Battle of Kurukshetra fought between two groups of cousins is the centerpiece
of what classic of world literature?
It is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being
theRamayana.
Bell curve
The book was controversial, especially those parts in which the authors wrote about
racial differences in intelligence and discussed the implications of those differences.
The authors were reported throughout the popular press as arguing that these IQ
differences are genetic.
In 1837, which literary great had his last meal at the Literaturnoe Kafe in St.
Petersburg after which he went on to fight (and lose) a duel?
He fought with his wife's alleged lover and lost his life after sustaining wounds.
The British explorer and hunter Frederick Selous was the inspiration behind what
adventurous character of 19th century literature? (hint: this character is also one
ofThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)
The English bishop Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626) is best known for overseeing
what literary task during the reign of King James I?
A translation of Roman poet Juvenal's quote " Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
inspired the title of what book, the only one of its kind in Time's 2005 list of all-time
greatest novels?
The graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore (artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John
Higgins)
The novel depicts an alternate history where superheroes emerged in the 1940s and
1960s, helping the United States to win the Vietnam War. The literal translation of
Juvenal's quote is "Who will guard the guards themselves?" but it is popularly
rendered as "Who watches the watchmen?"
The 1994 murder of a 14-year-old girl for ritualistic purposes in Botswana inspired
the first book of what best-selling series?
The main character is Mma Precious Ramotswe, who features as the stories'
protagonist and main detective.
Duc de Blangis, the Bishop, the Président de Curval and Durcet are the four
libertines who seek extreme gratification by isolating themselves with a harem in
the castle of Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, France in what controversial 1785 book?
Due to its themes of sexual violence and extreme cruelty, it has frequently been
banned.
The central character of which 1919 novel is the reporter George Willard to whom
the denizens of a certain American Midwest town confide their secrets?
Fill in the 3-word question at the end of this following extract taken from Betty
Friedan's 1963 classic The Feminine Mystique.
The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women.
It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered
in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife
struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched
slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub
Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night - she was afraid to ask even
of herself the silent question - ___ ___ ___
Is this all?
The book is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in
the United States.
I Ching
It is also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi and has a
significant influence on the culture of China.
A trick-performing goat named Djali is the pet of the gypsy girl who is one of the
main characters in what 19th century classic?
Which doomed lady of the literature of realism is married to Charles and has affairs
with Rodolphe Boulanger and Léon Dupuis?
Long established as one of the greatest novels ever written, the book has often
been described as a 'perfect' work of fiction.
(Acknowledgement)
During the Siege of Sarajevo in the 90s, Susan Sontag directed what play in a
candlelit theater symbolizing the city's absurd anticipation of western intervention?
In what 1959 classic of German literature do people go to a bar called the Onion
Cellar to share memories and peel onions, both to make crying easier and to
mitigate the shame for openly expressing their feelings?
Wimpy kid
After this novel was published in the country it was set in, the author was sued by
Mineko Iwasaki claiming that the author violated their agreement to protect her
anonymity if she told him about her life and profession.
What is this 1997 novel that chronicles the pursuit of Chiyo Sakamoto to become an
entertainer?
Golden listed Iwasaki as a source in his acknowledgments for the novel, causing her
to face a serious backlash. In 2003, Golden's publisher settled with Iwasaki out of
court for an undisclosed sum of money. Iwasaki later went on to write her own
autobiography, which shows a very different picture of twentieth-century geisha life
than the one shown in Golden's novel. The book was published as Geisha, a Life in
the U.S. and Geisha of Gion in the U.K.
What classic of world literature contains a passage titled The Grand Inquisitor in
which the monk Alyosha is questioned about the existence of god?
What is the opening sentence of the book that ends with "It was the devious-
cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found
another orphan."?
"Call me Ishmael."
What ambiguous 1898 ghost story ends with the governess of Bly House holding the
body of a dead child in her hands?
Talking about the creation of what word did a 20th century author claim he was
uninfluenced by existing folklore and wrote "I have no waking recollection of furry
pigmies ... And I protest that my ___ did not live in Africa, and was not furry, except
about the feet."?
Hobbit
The Oxford English Dictionary since the 1970s has credited Tolkien with the
invention of the word. Since then, however, it has been noted that there is prior
evidence of the word, in a 19th century list of legendary creatures.
What popular motivational series got its title from its author remembering his
grandmothers' words that what she was serving him would cure anything?
What memoirs of Hemingway take their title from what he said to a friend: "If you
are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for
the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is ___ ___ ___."?
A Moveable Feast
It is about his years in Paris as part of the American expatriate circle of writers in
the 1920s.
George Smiley
At the time the Holmes stories were published, 221B Baker Street did not exist but
Smiley's address is an actual existing address.
Eliza Donnithorne (1827-1886) who lived in Sydney was jilted by her groom on her
wedding day and spent the rest of her life in a darkened house. She is believed to
be the basis for which eerie character of Victorian times literature?
London to Suez = a;
Suez to Bombay = b;
Bombay to Calcutta = c;
Calcutta to Hong Kong = d;
Hong Kong to Yokohoma = e;
Yokohama to San Francisco = f;
San Francisco to New York City = g;
New York to London = h.
80 days
The proposed schedule in Verne's classic Around the World in Eighty Days.
Pay your dues. According to a theory, the title figure of what classic tale is said to be
based on Nicholas of Cologne who supposedly lured away children for the Children's
Crusade?
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is the classic work of which Japanese poet who
is best known for a particular short form of poetry?
What seminal work of the 20th century opens with a fantasy called Irma's
injectionand is the focus of analysis throughout the book?
The global think tank that attracted considerable attention with its 1972 publication
of The Limits of Growth is called 'The Club of' what European city?
Rome
The book is about the computer modeling of unchecked economic and population
growth with finite resource supplies. It predicted that economic growth could not
continue indefinitely because of the limited availability of natural resources,
particularly oil.
What 20th century German novel that traces the spiritual journey of a protagonist
contains twelve chapters relating to the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path of
a belief system?
A major preoccupation of Hesse in writing the book was to cure his 'sickness with
life' (Lebenskrankheit) by immersing himself in Indian philosophy such as that
expanded in the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.
In a letter dated dated 1 November, 1889, which author wrote "One must not put a
loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it."?
Anton Chekov
Chekhov's gun is the term for a literary technique whereby an apparently irrelevant
element is introduced early in the story whose significance becomes clear later in
the narrative. It is often interpreted as a method of foreshadowing, but the concept
can also be interpreted as meaning "do not include any unnecessary elements in a
story."
What 1874 nonsense poem in which the objective is to find an 'inconceivable
creature' features a crew of ten whose descriptions all begin with the letter B? (hint:
not Jabberwocky)
The poem introduces the Bellman's rule-of-three: What I tell you three times is true.
Lord Ruthven is the title character of what 1819 story/novella that created a genre
whose legacy continues through the books of Anne Rice and Stephenie Meyer?
What 1996 American novel that includes hundreds of end-notes takes its title from a
dialogue in Hamlet in which Hamlet refers to Yorick as a fellow of this kind?
The dialogue is when Hamlet holds the skull of the court jester, Yorick, and says
"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent
fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in
my imagination it is!" In 2005, Time included Infinite Jest in its list of the 100 best
English-language novels from 1923 to the present.
The novel refers to Fagin 257 times in the first 38 chapters as 'the Jew', while the
ethnicity or religion of the other characters is rarely mentioned. After receiving a
complaint, Dickens barely used the word to describe Fagin as such in the next 179
references in the further serialization of the novel.
The participants are a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from
Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.
Structurally, the collection resembles The Decameron, which Chaucer may have
known during his first diplomatic mission to Italy in 1372.
The slave girl Morgiana, the protagonist's elder brother Cassim and the cobbler
Baba Mustafa are three prominent characters in what 'seedy' oriental story?
Some critics believe that this story was added to One Thousand and One Nights by
one of its European translators.
A fictional species of great apes called 'Mangani' are responsible for raising which
popular character?
Tarzan
What 1899 poem of Rudyard Kipling whose racist title alludes to Western aspirations
to dominate the developing world was written after the American colonization of the
Philippines?
Although the poem mixed exhortation with sober warnings of the costs involved,
imperialists within the United States understood the phrase as justifying imperialism
as a noble enterprise.
The 5th Wave cartoons by Rich Tennant are interspersed throughout the books of
what reference series?
For Dummies
The name of the cartoon comes from Future Shock by Alvin Toffler.
What 1818 classic was written after its author listened to Shelley and Byron argue
about whether human life can be created artificially using electricity?
What noted work of holocaust literature was first published in Yiddish as Un di Velt
Hot Geshvign (And the World Remained Silent) only in 1955 as the author vowed
not to speak of his concentration camp experiences for ten years?
It is the first book in a trilogy - Night, Dawn, and Day - reflecting Wiesel's state of
mind during and after the Holocaust.
Goodgulf Greyteeth, Dildo Bugger, Frito Bugger and Spam Gangree are some of the
characters in a parody of what book? Extra points if you can name the parody!
Bored of the Rings was written by Henry N. Beard and Douglas C. Kenney, who later
founded National Lampoon. It was published in 1969 by Signet for the Harvard
Lampoon.
Marcel Proust
What 1903 classic that traces a life from domestication to wilderness was said to
have been inspired by/plagiarized from My Dogs in the Northland by Egerton R.
Young?
Fill in the next line from an all-time great work of English literature.
'Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy' and 'Whatever goes upon four legs, or
has wings, is a friend' are two of the commandments of the protagonists in which
20th century classic?
Kvetch
Oz
Nickname of Dickens - Boz, Shelley poem - Ozymandias, Biblical home of Job - Land
of Uz, what Baum saw on a file cabinet - O-Z. Snopes.com lists the origin as
undetermined.
A man named Pahóm runs all day to accumulate as much land as he can but drops
dead at sunset from exhaustion thus answering the title question of what classic
story by Leo Tolstoy?
James Joyce once called it "the greatest story that the literature of the world
knows."
Fill in the missing word in this famous quote of Jorge Luis Borges that is very
appropriate coming from a writer!
"library"
It is from his Poema de los Dones (Poem of the Gifts) that he wrote after going blind.
The poem talks about the the irony of God making him blind but giving him the love
of books.
A museum outside Nairobi was donated by the Danish government in 1964 to the
new Kenyan government as an independence gift. It was originally a residence of
which writer?
The plot of what genre-defining story has its genesis in the inspiration that its
author got from the reaction of the public to an orangutan display in Philadelphia in
1839?
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West and Dream of
the Red Chamber are the four novels considered as the most influential of the
fiction of the literature of which country?
China
What 1953 short story by Isaac Singer tells the story of a simpleton bread-maker
who is cheated by everyone his entire life but still retains his goodness?
The followers of what movement regard the publication of the book Dianetics: The
Modern Science of Mental Health as a key historical event and refer to it as 'Book
One'?
Scientology
What 1961 novel set on the island of Pianosa in the Mediterranean was written after
its author was influenced by the classic 1923 anti-war satire The Good Soldier
Švejkby Jaroslav Hašek?
The novel follows Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier, and a number
of other characters. Most events occur while the Airmen of the fictional 256th
squadron are based on the said island.
No sleuthing allowed. What struggling doctor wrote The Narrative of John Smith that
was published in 2011 about 130 years after it was first written?
The book was written in 1883 and 1884, a few years before the publication of A
Study In Scarlet, the first story to feature Holmes.
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and
six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty
pounds ought and six, result misery."
Mr. Micawber from David Copperfield
What concocted 1903 text that asserts a Jewish plan to take over the world is
sometimes cited as Hitler's justification for the Holocaust?
It was studied, as if factual, in German classrooms after the Nazis came to power in
1933, despite having been exposed as fraudulent years before. It was first
published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated
internationally in the early part of the twentieth century. Henry Ford funded printing
of 500,000 copies which were distributed throughout the United States in the 1920s.
Which 17th century literary classic ends with the title character stipulating in his will
that his niece will be disinherited if she marries anyone who reads about chivalry?
Don Quixote
Fill in the missing two words in the key sentence in Camus's The Stranger in which
the main character Mersault finds peace in the realization that life has no meaning.
"It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope,
and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time,
the first, I laid my heart open to the ___ ___ of the universe."
"benign indifference"
In the original French, the sentence is "la tendre indifférence du monde." The word
'gentle' replaces 'benign' in another translation.
Memory hole
What influential 1890 muckraking book takes its title from a sentence in François
Rabelais's Pantagruel that goes "one half of the world does not know ___ ___ ___ ___
___"?
According to J. K. Rowling's Quidditch Through the Ages, what are said to be more
popular than broomsticks for playing Quidditch in India, Pakistan and Iran?
Flying carpets
Which 1895 poem, probably the best evocation of Victorian stoicism was once
called "the essence of the message of The Gita (Bhagavad Gita) in English"?
The poem's line, "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two
imposters just the same" is written on the wall of the Centre Court players' entrance
at Wimbledon.
Who wrote the 1942 short story Runaround that lists three laws one of which is
stated below?
'A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to
come to harm'
Isaac Asimov
The Three Laws form an organizing principle and unifying theme for Asimov's
fiction.Runaround is notable for featuring the first explicit appearance of the Three
Laws of Robotics, which had hitherto only been implied in Asimov's robot stories.
The main characters in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume One are
Mina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Hawley Griffin, Jekyll/Hyde and Captain Nemo. Of
these, everyone knows the books from where Jekyll/Hyde and Captain Nemo come
from. What about the rest?
Mina Murray from Dracula, Allan Quatermain from King Solomon's Mines and Hawley
Griffin from The Invisible Man
Michel de Montaigne of France is best known for popularizing what kind of writing as
a literary genre?
Essay
He became famous for his ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with
anecdotes. His volume Essais (translated literally as Attempts) contains some of the
most widely influential essays ever written.
The book was called "a novel traveling under the cover of autobiography," and is
Lawrence's personal version of the historical events of the Arab Revolt against the
Ottoman Turks of 1916 to 1918.
In what story of Arthur C. Clarke do Tibetan monks seek to list all the names of God
as they believe He will bring the Universe to an end once this is done?
The story was the winner (in 2004) of the retrospective Hugo Award for Best Short
Story for the year 1954 and also received a response from Dalai Lama.
Similar to John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World, which influential 1930s book
by Edgar Snow is an account of the Communist Party of China?
Along with Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, it was the most influential book on Western
understanding and sympathy for China in the 1930s.
Which 1853 narrative poem of Matthew Arnold set in the orient tells the story of two
feuding warrior-generals who, unknown to both, happen to be father and son?
Which 1902 short story by W. W. Jacobs is based on the premise of three wishes
coming true but with an enormous price for interfering with fate?
In a searing essay titled Uncle Remus, No Friend of Mine, Alice Walker accused
which other African-American author of "stealing a good part of my heritage"?
The murder of landlady Alena and the angst it causes in the psyche of the
perpetrator is central to the plot of which 1866 literary classic?
William Golding's Lord of the Flies was written as a response to which 1857
adventure novel by R. M. Ballantyne because Golding disagreed with the views that
the book held?
The Coral Island
Which recent literary Nobel laureate wrote in one of his memoirs "Istanbul's fate is
my fate"?
Orhan Pamuk
Pamuk is the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 - the first Nobel Prize
to be awarded to a Turkish citizen.
What is the title of the acclaimed tetralogy of novels by Lawrence Durrell that are
set in an African port city?
Published between 1957 and 1960, the books present four perspectives on a single
set of events and characters in Alexandria, Egypt, before and during World War II.
The 19th century criminal Adam West who was nicknamed the 'Napoleon of Crime'
by Scotland Yard is speculated to be the inspiration behind the creation of which
literary villain?
Which best-selling 1989 novel begins "My father has asked me to be the fourth
corner at ___ ___ ___ ___. I am to replace my mother, whose seat at the mah jong
table has been empty since she died two months ago."?
Which acclaimed 2003 book written from the perspective of a boy with Asperger's
Syndrome takes its title from a remark made by Sherlock Holmes in the story Silver
Blaze?
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
What common word is missing in the titles of the following book series?
___, Run; ___ Redux; ___ Is Rich; ___ At Rest; ___ Remembered
Rabbit
HIV/AIDS
Shilts' premise is that while AIDS is caused by a biological agent, incompetence and
apathy toward those who were initially affected by AIDS allowed the spread of the
disease to become much worse; AIDS was allowed to happen.
About which author did Graham Greene say "It was as though ___ had put all his
writing in a sieve out of which all the adjectives and adverbs fell out"?
Which 1844 novel of William Makepeace Thackeray, later adapted into a movie by
Stanley Kubrick, is based on the life of an Anglo-Irish fortune-hunter called Andrew
Robinson Stoney?
The French word 'rastignac' that describes an ambitious social climber is from the
name of a character in the La Comédie humaine series of novels by which author?
The novels present a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoléon
Bonaparte in 1815.
In July 2010, who was announced as the first author to sell more than one million
books in Amazon's Kindle? Were he alive, he probably would have gotten a dragon
tattoo.
Stieg Larsson
Margaret Garner, an enslaved African American woman in pre-Civil War America was
notorious for killing her own daughter rather than allow the child to be returned to
slavery.
This story was the inspiration behind which classic 1987 American novel written by
a Nobel Prize winning author?
The book's epigraph reads: "Sixty Million and more," by which Morrison refers to the
estimated number of slaves who died in the slave trade. A survey of writers and
literary critics conducted by The New York Times found Beloved the best work of
American fiction of the past 25 years.
The English novelist Sax Rohmer is best known for creating which prototypical
ethnic villain who is now associated with a distinctive mustache?
Dr. Fu Manchu
The literary world owes a big debt to actors John Heminges and Henry Condell who
compiled what in 1623?
Heminges and Condell were in a position to do this because they, like Shakespeare,
worked for the King's Men, the London playing company that produced all of
Shakespeare's plays (in Elizabethan England, plays belonged to the company that
performed them, not to the dramatist who had written them).
The title of which 1959 play is the phrase that follows the lines 'What happens to a
dream deferred? Does it dry up like ...' in a Langston Hughes poem?
The story is based upon a black family's experiences in the Washington Park
Subdivision of Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood. A Raisin in the Sun was the first
play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, as well as the first play
with a black director (Lloyd Richards) on Broadway.
'The duke and the king' are characters that accompany the runaway lead pair in
which classic American novel?
"Why is that you white people developed much cargo and brought it to New Guinea,
but we black people had little cargo of our own?" asked Yali.
The book met with a wide range of response, ranging from generally favorable to
outright rejection of its approach. In 1998 it won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-
Fiction and the Royal Society's Rhône-Poulenc Prize for Science Books.
'The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become
nothing, have no place in it.'
This unforgettable opening line is from which author's A Bend in the River and lent
itself to the title of that authors authorized biography The World Is What It Is by
Patrick French?
V. S. Naipaul
It was selected by the editors of the New York Times Book Review as one of the
Times' 10 Best Books of 2008.
The most-translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death in 1985,
whose best known works are the Our Ancestors trilogy and
the Cosmicomicscollection of short stories?
Italo Calvino
Which recent Nobel laureate and the author of The Time of the Hero, The Green
Houseand Conversation in the Cathedral ran for the presidency of Peru in 1990?
Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide
audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. Like many Latin
American authors, Vargas Llosa has been politically active throughout his career;
over the course of his life, he has gradually moved from the political left towards the
right.
Roland Deschain is the protagonist of what series of seven fantasy books that were
written between 1970 and 2004?
They describe a "Gunslinger" and his quest toward a tower whose nature the books
call both physical and metaphorical. King has described the series as his magnum
opus.
Which poetic drama that was first performed in 1935 draws on the writing of Edward
Grim, a clerk who was a witness to a killing in 1170?
Paris
The original bookstore's proprietor was Sylvia Beach. Between 1919 and 1941, the
store was considered to be a center of Anglo/American literary culture in Paris. The
shop was often visited by artists of the "Lost Generation," such as Ernest
Hemingway, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, George Antheil, Man
Ray and James Joyce. The contents of the store were considered high quality and
reflected Beach's own literary taste.
The first name of which science fiction hero created by Alex Raymond was retitled
as 'Speed' in Australia to avoid a negative connotation of the word by which we
know him better?
Flash (Gordon)
At the time, the predominant meaning of "flash" was "showy", connoting dishonesty.
In which love story of Roman mythology do the lead pair, who are forbidden to wed
because of their parents' rivalry exchange words through a crack in the wall?
What classic short story by the French writer Guy de Maupassant concerns an
invisible malevolent spirit that aims to take control over the narrator?
The Horla
The story has been cited as an inspiration for Lovecraft's own The Call of Cthulhu,
which also features an extraterrestrial being who influences minds and who is
destined to conquer humanity.
In each of the books, Curious George is identified in the text as a monkey, though in
the illustrations he does not correspond exactly to any non-fictional species of
monkey (and has more of the characteristics of an ape, especially a chimpanzee,
which does not possess a tail, as does a monkey). George is brought from his home
in Africa by "The Man with The Yellow Hat" to live with him in a big city.
'Tis is the title of the sequel to which biographical 1996 book that is mainly about
growing up poor in Ireland?
Can you fill in the phrase in the title of Hannah Arendt's 1963 book Eichmann in
Jerusalem: A Report on the ___ ___ ___?
The phrase refers to Eichmann's deportment at his trial, displaying neither guilt nor
hatred, claiming he bore no responsibility for shipping Jews to their deaths because
he was simply "doing his job."
Banality of Evil
Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on
Adolf Eichmann's trial for The New Yorker.
Which classic 1951 sci-fi novel that also served as an inspiration for the movie 28
Days Later starts with the protagonist waking up in a hospital to find the world
eerily quiet?
Which 1961 non-fiction book by US journalist John Howard Griffin describes his six-
week experience travelling on buses through racially segregated states while
passing as a black man?
Black Like Me
In 1959, at the time of the book's writing, race relations were particularly strained in
North America; Griffin's aim was to explain the difficulties facing black people in
certain areas. To expedite this, under the care of a doctor, Griffin artificially
darkened his skin to pass as a black man.
The title of which classic set in Africa is taken from a line in Yeats' poem The Second
Coming and precedes the words 'the centre cannot hold'?
Things Fall Apart was followed by a sequel, No Longer at Ease (1960), originally
written as the second part of a larger work together with Things Fall Apart,
andArrow of God (1964), on a similar subject.
"Killing an Arab", the first single by music group 'The Cure' was said to be based on
which 20th century French literary classic?
The lyrics describe a shooting on a beach, in which the Arab of the title is killed by
the song's narrator; in Camus' story the main character, Meursault, shoots an Arab
standing on a beach after staring out at the sea and being overwhelmingly blinded
by the sun, reflected on the sea, the sand and the knife the Arab was holding. The
track has a controversial history, since it has often been viewed as promoting
violence against Arabs.
When R. L. Stevenson wrote the classic Treasure Island, he based the character of
Long John Silver on which friend of his who wrote the poem Invictus?
William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)
Which 1899 book by Thorstein Veblen that originated the phrase 'conspicuous
consumption' is considered one of the first detailed critiques of consumerism?
In the book, Veblen argues that economic life is driven not by notions of utility, but
by social vestiges from pre-historic times. Drawing examples from his time (turn-of-
the-Twentieth Century America) and anthropology, he held that much of today's
society is a variation on early tribal life. According to Veblen, beginning with
primitive tribes, people began to adopt a division of labor along certain lines. The
"higher-status" group monopolized war and hunting while farming and cooking were
considered inferior work.
What type of utensil that is frequently used in nonsense poetry first appeared in
Edward Lear's best-known poem The Owl and the Pussycat?
Runcible spoon
Lear does not appear to have had any firm idea of what the word "runcible" means.
His whimsical nonsense verse celebrates words primarily for their sound, and a
specific definition is not needed to appreciate his work. However, since the 1920s
(several decades after Lear's death), modern dictionaries have generally defined a
runcible spoon to be a fork with three broad curved prongs and a sharpened edge,
used with pickles or hors d'oeuvres, such as a pickle fork.
Ozymandias
Ozymandias was another name for Ramesses the Great, Pharaoh of the nineteenth
dynasty of ancient Egypt. The poem is frequently anthologized and is probably
Shelley's most famous short poem.
What was the name of the English physician who published an expurgated edition of
Shakespeare's work that he considered to be more appropriate for women and
children than the original?
He similarly edited Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. His
expurgation was the subject of some criticism and ridicule and, through the eponym
bowdlerise (or bowdlerize), his name is now associated with censorship of literature,
motion pictures and television programmes.
Which phrase has its origins in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra where in a
speech Cleopatra regrets her youthful dalliances with Julius Caesar when she says
"... My ___ ___, / When I was green in judgment, cold in blood ..."?
"salad days"
More modern use, especially in the United States, refers to a person's heyday when
somebody was at the peak of his/her abilities-not necessarily in that person's youth.
Which Norwegian fairy tale is about three goats who want to cross a bridge under
which lurks a fearsome troll?
What 1908 satirical work by the Nobel Prize winning French author Anatole France
describes a fictitious island of great auks that exists on the northern coast of
Europe?
Penguin Island
The longest chapter and probably most well known is a satire of the Dreyfus affair.
In the US and Canada, what appropriately titled book of Dr. Seuss is a popular gift
for students graduating from high school and college?
It was first published by Random House on January 22, 1990, making it his last book
published before his death. It is perhaps best known for the refrain, "Will you
succeed? Yes, you will indeed. (98 3/4% guaranteed.)"
Can you fill-in the first line of the poem whose next lines are:
"................................................
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."?
This is the Keats poem Endymion which he based on the Greek myth of the
shepherd Endymion who was beloved by the moon goddess Selene.
Which 2003 bestseller and memoir set in Iran is divided into four sections
calledLolita, Gatsby, James and Austen?
Which Peruvian-born American author wrote The Teachings of Don Juan and 12
other books that describe his purported training in traditional Mesoamerican
shamanism?
The books and Castaneda, who rarely spoke in public about his work, have been
controversial for many years.
The title of which classic 19th century Russian novel comes from the plot where
deceased serfs are counted for accounting purposes?
In Russia before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, landowners were entitled to
own serfs to farm their land. Serfs were for most purposes considered the property
of the landowner, and could be bought, sold, or mortgaged against, as any other
chattel. To count serfs (and people in general), the measure word "soul" was used:
e.g., "six souls of serfs." The plot of the novel relies on "dead souls" (i.e., "dead
serfs") which are still accounted for in property registers.
Criticizing which author for her lack of passion did Charlotte Bronte write "Her
business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes, mouth,
hands and feet."?
According to some sources, the title of which Somerset Maugham book comes from
a review of his other novel Of Human Bondage in which the novel's protagonist,
Philip Carey, is described as "so busy yearning for ___ ___ that he never saw the ___
at his feet"?
Based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin, it is told in episodic form by the first-
person narrator as a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central
character, Charles Strickland, a middle aged English stock broker who abandons his
wife and children abruptly in order to pursue his desire to become an artist.
Presumably Strickland's "moon" is the idealistic realm of Art and Beauty, while the
"sixpence" represents human relationships and the ordinary pleasures of life.
The 1954 publication of the book Seduction of the Innocent which protested the
harmful effects of mass media on children led to a U.S. Congressional inquiry into
what genre of publishing?
Comic book industry
It led to the creation of Comics Code Authority. At the height of its influence, it was a
de facto censor for the U.S. comic book industry. The CCA had no legal authority
over other publishers, but magazine distributors often refused to carry comics
without the CCA's seal of approval.
Set in 1547, Mark Twain's novel The Prince and the Pauper tells the story of the
pauper Tom Canty and which other royal historical figure?
Though not as popular among critics as Twain's other works, the book has
foreshadowed the author's successful forays into historical fiction with A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
Which seminal work of 20th century literature is divided into the following five
sections?
Despite the alleged obscurity of the poem - its shifts between satire and prophecy,
its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its elegiac but
intimidating summoning up of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures
- the poem has nonetheless become a familiar touchstone of modern literature.
Among its famous phrases are "April is the cruellest month" (its first line); "I will
show you fear in a handful of dust"; and the Sanskrit "Shantih shantih shantih" (its
last line).
In 2004, the government of Equatorial Guinea accused which popular English author
of being one of the financiers of a failed 2004 coup d'état attempt against it?
Jeffrey Archer
"In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of the
characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season
Spring."
Literary buffs should be able to immediately say what this alludes to. Can you?
In 1954, Life magazine carried an article Why Do Students Bog Down on First R? A
Local Committee Sheds Light on a National Problem: Reading by John Hersey in
which he was critical of school primers. What children's classic was written in
response?
Hersey asked toward the end of the article: Why should [school primers] not have
pictures that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to
the words they illustrate - drawings like those of the wonderfully imaginative
geniuses among children's illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, "Dr. Seuss", Walt
Disney? Dr. Seuss responded to this "challenge," and began work. His publisher
supplied him with a list of 400 words, ones that the publisher thought children
would be learning in school. His publisher told him to cut the list in half and to try
and write an interesting enough book for children. Nine months later Dr. Seuss
created The Cat In The Hat, which used 223 words from the list he was given.
Because A. A. Milne was critical towards him for pandering to Germans during WWII,
which English author created a ridiculous character named Timothy Bobbin to
parody some of Milne's poetry?
P. G. Wodehouse
During WWII, Wodehouse made a series of radio broadcasts aimed at America (but
not England) that the Germans persuaded him to make from Berlin. Wartime
England was in no mood for light-hearted banter, however, and the broadcasts led
to many accusations of collaboration with the Nazis and even treason.
The Sketch Book of Geofrey Crayon, Gent. commonly referred to as The Sketch
Bookis a collection of essays and short stories published in 1819 and 1820. It is best
known for containing what two magical American short stories?
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
It also marks Irving's first use of the pseudonym "Geoffrey Crayon," which he would
continue to employ throughout his literary career. The Sketch Book, along with
James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, was the first widely read work of
American literature in Britain and Europe. It also helped advance the reputation of
American writers with an international audience.
Which 1989 Spanish novel follows the story of young Tita who longs her entire life
for Pedro but is only able to express her feelings through her cooking, which causes
the people who taste it to experience what she feels?
The book is divided into twelve sections named after the months of the year. Each
section begins with a recipe of some sort, involving Mexican foods. The chapters
outline the preparation of the dish and ties it to an event in the protagonist's life.
The phrase "like water for chocolate" comes from the Spanish "como agua para
chocolate."
(Acknowledgement)
What trilogy of Arabic literature consists of the books Palace Walk, Palace of
Desireand Sugar Street?
The books' titles are taken from actual streets in Cairo, the city of Mahfouz's
childhood and youth. He was an Egyptian novelist who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for
Literature and who managed to modernize Arabic literature. He is regarded as one
of the first writers of Arabic literature, along with Tawfiq el-Hakim, to explore themes
of existentialism.
Which 1944 work of Friedrich Hayek is among the most influential expositions of
classical liberalism and is stated as the single book that significantly shaped the
political ideologies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan?
Hayek's central thesis is that all forms of collectivism lead logically and inevitably to
tyranny, and he used the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as examples of countries
which had gone down "the road to serfdom" and reached tyranny. Hayek argued
that within a centrally planned economic system, the distribution and allocation of
all resources and goods would devolve onto a small group, which would be
incapable of processing all the information pertinent to the appropriate distribution
of the resources and goods at the central planners' disposal. Disagreement about
the practical implementation of any economic plan combined with the inadequacy
of the central planners' resource management would invariably necessitate coercion
in order for anything to be achieved.
Which 1914 history classic that describes the events of the first month of World War
I was recommended by JFK to members of his cabinet to help in dealing with the
Cuban Missile Crisis?
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
The focus of the book is to provide the history of World War I from the declaration of
war through the start of the Franco-British offensive that stopped the German
advance through France. In addition, the book provides a brief history of the plans,
strategies, world events and international sentiments prior to and during the war.
The Pulitzer Prize nomination committee was unable to award it the prize for
outstanding history because Joseph Pulitzer's will specifically stated that the
recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for history must be a book on American history.
Instead, Tuchman was given the prize for general non-fiction.
Concerned about the vagaries of English spelling, which man of letters willed a
portion of his wealth to fund the creation of a new phonemic alphabet for the
English language?
The money available was insufficient to support the project, so it was neglected for
a time. That changed when his estate began earning significant royalties from the
rights to Pygmalion once My Fair Lady became a hit. However, the Public Trustee
found grounds to challenge the will as being badly worded. In the end an out-of-
court settlement granted only £8600 for promoting the new alphabet, which is now
called the Shavian alphabet.
When he was killed in a car crash in 1960, which existentialist became the shortest-
lived of any literature Nobel laurate till date?
Albert Camus
The favorite expression of which belle from the Southern United States is "God's
Nightgown!"?
Scarlett O'Hara
The title of which Virginia Woolf's essay comes from her conception that 'a woman
must have money and ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ if she is to write fiction'?
The essay examines whether women were capable of producing work of the quality
of William Shakespeare, amongst other topics.
Which 1975 book by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer is considered to be the
founding philosophical statement of the animal rights movement?
Animal Liberation
Singer himself rejected the use of the theoretical framework of rights when it comes
to animals: he argued that the interests of animals should be considered because of
their ability to feel suffering and that the idea of rights was not necessary in order
to consider them. The central argument of the book is an expansion of the utilitarian
idea that 'the greatest good for the greatest number' is the only measure of good or
ethical behaviour. Singer argues that there is no reason not to apply this to animals.
"..............................................
................................................
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."?
Utopia by Thomas More is largely based on which influential work of philosophy and
political theory?
Plato's Republic
John F. Kennedy's often quoted sentence in his 1961 inaugural address was inspired
by which Lebanese-American poet who wrote the following sentence?
"Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one
asking what you can do for your country?"
He was born in Lebanon and spent much of his productive life in the United States.
One of his most notable lines of poetry in the English speaking world is from Sand
and Foam (1926), which reads : 'Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so
that the other half may reach you.' This was taken by John Lennon and placed,
though in a slightly altered form, into the song "Julia" from The Beatles' 1968 album
The Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album).
The Other Side of Me is the autobiography of which popular American author and
creator of the TV series I Dream of Jeannie?
Sidney Sheldon
In the Trilogy Carlos is depicted as the world's most dangerous assassin, a man with
international contacts that allow him to strike efficiently and anonymously at
locations anywhere on the globe. His actual name (Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez) is used
and details - a mixture of fact and fiction - are given about his upbringing and
training, including the fictional account that he trained with Russian intelligence at
Novgorod.
Gamekeeper Oliver Mellors is the titular character of what controversial 1928 book?
The story is said to have originated from events in Lawrence's own unhappy
domestic life, and he took inspiration for the settings of the book from Ilkeston in
Derbyshire where he lived for a while. According to some critics the fling of Lady
Ottoline Morrell with "Tiger", a young stonemason who came to carve plinths for her
garden statues also influenced the story. The publication of the book caused a
scandal due to its explicit sex scenes, including previously banned four-letter words,
and perhaps particularly because the lovers were a working-class male and an
aristocratic female.
If Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day details the D-Day invasion of Normandy,
and The Last Battle tells about the Battle of Berlin, which of his books tells the story
of Operation Market Garden in WWII?
The American travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux's book Sir Vidia's
Shadowprovides a caustic portrait of which other famous author?
V. S. Naipaul
It was precipitated by a falling-out between the two men a few years earlier.
Which 1961 book by Frantz Fanon was described by Time magazine as 'this is not so
much a book as a rock thrown through the windows of the West. It is the Communist
Manifesto or the Mein Kampf of the anticolonial revolution ...'?
It is Frantz Fanon's best-known work, written during and regarding the Algerian
struggle for independence from colonial rule. As a psychiatrist, Fanon explored the
psychological effect of colonisation on the psyche of a nation as well as its broader
implications for building a movement for decolonization. It has become a handbook
for political leaders faced with any type of decolonization and is still read in the
Pentagon today as advice on dealing with the conflict in Iraq.
Which detective novel by Agatha Christie was first published in 1939 as Ten Little
Niggers and later as Ten Little Indians and is her best selling novel with 100 million
sales to date?
Ten people, each with a deadly secret, find themselves trapped on an island where
they become the subjects of a cruel game played by a figure styling himself Mr. U.
N. Owen ("Unknown"). They are killed according to an old nursery rhyme, Ten Little
Indians.
What genre of literature is generally believed to have been invented by the English
author Horace Walpole with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto?
Gothic fiction
Prominent features of gothic fiction include terror (both psychological and physical),
mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic architecture, castles,
darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness, secrets and hereditary curses.
Which writer, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature created the
fictional cities of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota and Zenith, Winnemac?
Some of his most famous books were Main Street and Babbitt. He was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize in 1926 - which he rejected - for Arrowsmith, a novel about an
idealistic doctor. Elmer Gantry was the story of an opportunistic evangelist, if not an
outright charlatan.
What term from the Spanish for 'rogue/rascal' describes a genre of fiction that
depicts in realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero who
lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society?
Picaresque
This style of novel originated in Spain and flourished in Europe in the 17th and 18th
centuries and continues to influence modern literature. Some modern novelists
have used some picaresque techniques, as Gogol in Dead Souls (1842-52). Rudyard
Kipling's Kim (1901) combined the influence of the picaresque novel with the then
new spy novel. Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk was the first example of the
picaresque technique in Central Europe. Mark Twain's The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn was consciously written as a picaresque novel, as were many
other novels of vagabond life, such as Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) and Henry
Miller's Tropic of Cancer. Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March is a
picaresque novel as well.
Which 1966 postcolonial parallel novel by Jean Rhys acts as a prequel to Charlotte
Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre?
It was named by Time as one of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.
James Joyce was referring to which literary character with the below words?
"He is the true prototype of the British colonist. ... the whole Anglo-Saxon spirit is in
___ ___: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow
yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity."
Robinson Crusoe
Which path-breaking 1906 book uncovered the horrid working conditions in The
Union Stock Yard & Transit Co. or The Yards in Chicago?
It operated in the New City community area of Chicago, Illinois for 106 years,
helping the city become known as "hog butcher to the world" and the center of the
American meat packing industry for decades. From the Civil War until the 1920s and
peaking in 1924, more meat was processed in Chicago than in any other place in
the world.
A mysterious figure paid an annual tribute on Jan 19th during the period of 1949 to
2009 to which American author by visiting the author's original grave marker in
Baltimore?
Which writer of Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair was once called "the
greatest poet of the 20th century in any language" by Gabriel García Márquez?
Having his works translated into dozens of languages, Pablo Neruda is considered
one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century. Critic and
biographer Alistair Reid has stated that Neruda is the most widely read poet since
William Shakespeare. In 1971, Neruda was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
after several years of being overlooked for his political activism.
What is observed annually on June 16 in Dublin to celebrate the life of James Joyce
and relive the events in his novel Ulysses?
Bloomsday
The day is a secular holiday in Ireland. The name derives from Leopold Bloom, the
protagonist of Ulysses, and 16 June was the date of Joyce's first outing with his wife-
to-be, Nora Barnacle, when they walked to the Dublin village of Ringsend.
Which influential 19th century work on military strategy by Prussian general Carl
von Clausewitz is prescribed at various military academies to this day?
On War
It was written mostly after the Napoleonic wars, between 1816 and 1830, and
published posthumously by his wife in 1832. Clausewitz integrates politics and
social and economic issues as some of the most important factors in deciding the
outcomes of a war.
If the book The Catcher in the Rye is to Mark Chapman-John Lennon, which book is
to Yigal Amir-Yitzhak Rabin?
As published in the Israeli press at the time, police investigators believed that the
assassination was partially inspired by the book, and that Amir used it as a kind of
"how to" manual.
What is the significance of the title of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 given that it is
set in a society where censorship is prevalent?
The title of which book comes from a dialogue within where the character Atticus
warns his children that, although they can "shoot all the blue jays they want," they
must remember that "it's a sin to do this"?
To Kill a Mockingbird
Which author admitted that large passages of his best seller were copied from the
book The African by Harold Courlander?
Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India spoke with Khrushchev and was partly
instrumental in preventing the expulsion of which writer from the Soviet Union after
that person won the Nobel Prize for Literature?
Boris Pasternak
If Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence fictionalizes the life of Paul Gauguin, his
novelCakes and Ale contains characterizations of which English author who never
lived in Wessex?
Thomas Hardy
What 1889 comic classic that describes a boating holiday on the Thames was
initially intended to be a serious travel guide until the humorous elements took over
and made the book what it now is?
Which well-known short story about time travel by Ray Bradbury is a fictional
exploration of the 'butterfly effect' of Chaos theory?
A Sound of Thunder
It was first published in Collier's magazine in 1952. The Locus Index to Science
Fiction Anthologies and Collections lists it as the first of the top ten most
republished science fiction stories.
What section of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey gets its name from the
number of literary figures buried there?
Poets' Corner
The first person to be interred there was Geoffrey Chaucer, whose burial in the
abbey owed more to his position as Clerk of Works of the Palace of Westminster
than to his fame as a writer.
The 2000 film Finding Forrester in which Sean Connery plays a reclusive author was
loosely based on the life of which person who passed away in 2010?
J. D. Salinger
Which 1939 American play takes place in Harry Hopes' saloon and starts with the
scene where everyone is waiting for 'Hickey' to show up?
The play contains many allusions to political topics, particularly anarchism and
socialism.
San Jose State University in the US has an annual fiction contest for bad writing
named for which 19th century writer known for his hyperbolic prose?
Lord Lytton was a florid, popular writer of his day, who coined such phrases as "the
great unwashed", "pursuit of the almighty dollar", "the pen is mightier than the
sword", and the infamous incipit "It was a dark and stormy night." in his 1830
novelPaul Cliford. Despite the popularity in his heyday, today his name is known as
a byword for bad writing.
Rider Haggard wrote King Solomon's Mines as a result of a wager with his brother,
namely that he could not write a novel half as good as Robert Louis
Stevenson'sTreasure Island (1883).
Which classic Middle Eastern story of star-crossed lovers is based on the real story
of a young man called Qays ibn al-Mullawah and has achieved legendary status in
the Islamic world?
Layla and Majnun
There were two Arabic versions of the story at the time.In one version, he spent his
youth together with Layla tending their flocks. In the other version, upon seeing
Layla he fell in a most passionate love with her. In both versions, however, he went
mad when her father prevented him from marrying her; for that reason he came to
be called Majnun Layla, which means "Driven mad by Layla." To him were attributed
a variety of incredibly passionate romantic Arabic poems.
Which 1903 book by Erskine Childers that is still enjoyed for its accurate portrayal of
inland sailing was credited by Winston Churchill as a major reason for the
establishment of naval bases in the UK?
It was one of the early invasion novels which predicted war with Germany and
called for British preparedness. The plot involves the uncovering of secret German
preparations for an invasion of the United Kingdom.
Fans of Russian Literature who cannot read the originals in Russian ought to be
thankful to Constance Garnett. Why?
In 1893, shortly after a visit to Moscow and Petersburg during which she met Leo
Tolstoy, she started translating Russian literature, which became her life's passion
and resulted in English-language versions of dozens of volumes by Tolstoy, Gogol,
Goncharov, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Turgenev, Ostrovsky and Chekhov.
Mark Twain's ridiculing of chivalry in his story A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's
Court is considered as specifically targeting whose books?
Walter Scott
Among the early critics of Scott was Mark Twain, who blamed Scott's
"romantacization of battle" for the South's decision to fight the US Civil War.
In Dante's Divine Comedy, if Hell is divided into 9 circles and Paradise into 9
spheres, what is divided into 7 terraces?
Purgatory
In the Indiana Jones series of novels, Indiana loses his virginity to which real life
spy?
Mata Hari
After William Shakespeare, who is the most frequently quoted writer in the English
language with phrases like "Theirs not to reason why,/Theirs but to do and die"?
Alfred Tennyson
Some other phrases by Tennyson that have become commonplace in the English
language include: "nature, red in tooth and claw", "better to have loved and lost"
and "My strength is as the strength of ten,/Because my heart is pure."
Baden-Powell used themes from which two books in setting up the Scouting
movement?
The junior movement is called the Wolf Cubs. These connections still exist today.
Not only is the movement named after Mowgli's adopted wolf family, the adult
helpers of Wolf Cub Packs adopt names taken from The Jungle Book, especially the
adult leader who is called Akela after the leader of the Seeonee wolf pack.
Washington Irving's classic story Rip Van Winkle is set in which geographic region of
New York state?
Catskills
The story is a close adaptation of Peter Klaus the Goatherd by J.C.C. Nachtigal,
which is a shorter story set in a German village. The choice of "Van Winkle" for the
character's name may have been influenced by the fact that Irving's New York
publisher was C. S. Van Winkle.
In the days of Haroun al-Rashid, Caliph of Baghdad, a poor porter pauses to rest on
a bench outside the gate of a rich merchant's house, where he complains to Allah
about the injustice of a world which allows the rich to live in ease while he must toil
and yet remain poor. The owner of the house hears this, and sends for the porter,
and it is found they are both named ___. The rich ___ tells the poor ___ that he
became wealthy, "by Fortune and Fate," the details of which he will now proceed to
relate.
Stories of Sindbad
The Arabian Nights, the collection of stories in which the cycle of Sinbad is found,
takes the form of tales told by the beautiful maiden Scheherazade over a period of a
thousand and one nights. At the close of the 536th night, Scheherazade gives the
setting for the tales of Sinbad.
Karataka and Damanaka are the names of two jackals that are retainers to a lion
king. Their lively adventures as well as the stories they tell one another make up
nearly half of which classic ancient Sanskrit work?
The Panchatantra
The novel was published in 1988, and on Feb 14, 1989, Ayatollah of Iran issued a
fatwa calling on all Muslims to execute all those involved in the publication of the
novel.
Whose second novel, Midnight's Children, won the Booker Prize in 1981?
Answers:
White
T. S. Eliot
Mark Twain
Salman Rushdie
Ishmael
Jean-Paul Sartre
Emile Zola
Persuasion
Which novel is the story of the gentle knight and his servant Sancho Panza?
In literature which 1719 book has gained wide acceptance as 'the first English
novel'?
'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen' is the first
line from which book?
Which Washington D.C. born oscar-winning actress wrote 'A Lotus Grows in the
Mud'?
Which famous past British political figure wrote Sybil?
Which lead character was the budding author in the The Waltons?
Which Victorian author wrote the plays 'Frozen Deep' and 'No Gobblins'?
Answers:
Don Quixote
Robinson Crusoe
Joseph
1984
John Steinbeck
Goldie Hawn
Bemjamin Disraeli
John-Boy
Charles Dickens