2021 QUIZ ANSWERS

 

1.    How big was the diamond in F Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 novella?
A.    As big as the Algonquin
B.    As big as the Ritz
C.    As big as the Plaza
D.    As big as the Biltmore
As big as the Ritz

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2.    Who started up The Reading Room, a hub for literary communities, in 2020? 
A.    J K Rowling
B.    Stephen Fry
C.    The Duchess of Cornwall
D.    Margaret Atwood
The Duchess of Cornwall

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3.    Whose novels include ‘The Associate’ (2009) and ‘The Litigators’ (2011)?
A.    John Grisham
B.    Harlan Coben
C.    Jeffrey Archer
D.    Ruth Ware
John Grisham

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4.    Which line from Tennyson’s poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’ did Agatha Christie use for the title of a 1962 detective novel?
A.    Fields of barley
B.    Four gray walls
C.    Shadows of the world
D.    The mirror crack’d from side to side
The mirror crack’d from side to side

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5.    Which 1987 Haruki Murakami novel shares its title with a Beatles song?
A.    Paperback writer
B.    Blackbird
C.    Norwegian Wood 
D.    A Day in the Life
Norwegian Wood 

6.    Which God is Percy's father in Percy Jackson and the Olympians?
A.    Zeus
B.    Poseidon
C.    Hades
D.    Hermes
Poseidon

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7.    Which club features prominently in ‘Fever Pitch’, Nick Hornby’s autobiographical first novel which centres on his obsessive love for football?
A.    Arsenal
B.    Liverpool
C.    Queens Park Rangers
D.    Manchester City
Arsenal

LITERARY LOVERS
8.    In which Jane Austen novel do Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram fall in love?
‘Mansfield Park’ (1814)

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9.    In which 1956 novel do Pongo and Perdita raise an extended family?
‘101 Dalmations’ by Dodie Smith

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10.    Which classic character says this? ‘Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be’.
Pip, in ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens

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11.    Connell and Marianne, fellow students at a secondary school in County Sligo, Ireland, are the main protagonists in which 2018 novel by Sally Rooney? 
Normal People

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12.    One of Shakespeare’s heroines is described thus; ‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety’.  Who is she, and who falls in love with her when he sees her drift past in her gilded barge?
Cleopatra and Antony

BOOKS INTO FILMS
13.    Bestselling novels ‘Jaws’ by Peter Benchley and ‘Jurassic Park’ by Michael Crichton were written 25 years apart, but have what in common?
Both became films directed by Steven Spielberg

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14.    Which novel, subsequently made into a film, features the stricken ship the SS Cabinet Minister, which runs aground on a Hebridean island?
‘Whisky Galore’ (1947) by Compton Mackenzie 

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15.    Written by a member of the Indian diplomatic service, what was the name of the book on which the 2008 film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was based?
‘Q & A’ (2005) by Vikas Swarup 

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16.    Dev Patel starred in the titular role in a recent major film adaptation of which classic novel? Directed by Armando Iannucci, the film was filling cinemas just as the first Covid lockdown was announced. 
‘David Copperfield’ or, to give it its full name: ‘The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)’ (1849) by Charles Dickens

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17.    Which 1862 book by Victor Hugo, the story of an escaped convict, Jean Valjean, was turned into a 6-part BBC TV series starring Dominic West in 2018?
Les Misérables

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18.    Issac Asimov wrote a series of science fiction short stories that were assimilated into one novel, and later adapted into a film featuring Will Smith. What is the name shared by the novel and film?
I, Robot

PLACES 
19.    Who has put Matterdale on the map?   
James Rebanks with ‘The Shepherd’s Life’ (2015) and ‘English Pastoral’ (2020)

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20.    Big Brother is dictator of which country in George Orwell’s 1948 novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’?
Oceania

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21.    In which country are Jo Nesbo’s books set?
Norway

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22.    Where did Hunter S Thompson experience Fear and Loathing in two cult 70s books?
Las Vegas

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23.    William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey were the main figures of which group of poets, named after the area in which they lived?
The Lake Poets

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24.    Who imagined a world in which Germany had won the Second World War in his 1992 novel ‘Fatherland’?
Robert Harris

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25.    Which country is Alan Paton referring to in the title of his 1948 novel, ‘Cry, the Beloved Country’?
South Africa

BACK TO SCHOOL
26.    Which author wrote about the fictional boarding school of Malory Towers?
Enid Blyton

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27.    In Charles Dickens’ ‘Nicholas Nickleby’, what is the name of the poor schoolboy?
Smike

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28.    In a play by Christopher Marlowe, which scholar at the University of Wittenberg pledges his body and soul to the Devil in return for 24 years of being able to do whatever he likes?
Dr Faustus in ‘The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus’ (1604)

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29.    Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches features in which children’s classic? 
‘The Worst Witch’ (1974) by Jill Murphy

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30.    Holden Caulfield runs away from Pencey Preparatory School in which American coming-of-age novel?
‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J D Salinger, first published as a novel in 1951

ANIMALIA
31.    The Hindi words for three animals, hathi, bagheera, and bhalu, were used by which author when naming some of his best-known characters?
Rudyard Kipling used the Hindi animal names in the ‘Jungle Book’ (1894)

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32.    What is the title of E B White’s novel about a pig called Wilbur and his arachnid friend?
‘Charlotte’s Web’ (1952)

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33.    Which bird eerily utters the word ‘nevermore’ in an 1845 poem by Edgar Allan Poe?
A raven

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34.    A 2013 novel by Donna Tartt takes its name from a painting of a bird by Carel Fabritius in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  Which bird is it?
A goldfinch

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35.    Only one play by Shakespeare contains the name of an animal in its title.  Which play is it? 
‘The Taming of the Shrew’ – probably written between 1590 and 1594

THINK OF A NUMBER
36.    Add together the Bennet sisters and the Brothers Karamazov.  How many have you got?
9

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37. The denouement of a 1915 adventure novel by John Buchan ends on a flight of how many steps?
39.  In the novel, the steps lead from a cliff top down to the sea - Buchan had been inspired by a flight that he could see from his nursing home window as he recovered from a duodenal ulcer.  The famous 1978 film replaces these with the steps in Big Ben. 

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38.    In which Kurt Vonnegut novel is Billy Pilgrim a prisoner of war in Dresden?
Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

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39.    To which address on Charing Cross Road did Helene Hanff direct her orders for books?  She wrote a novel based on her 20-year correspondence with Marks & Co, antiquarian booksellers, in 1970.
84

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40.    How many years did Heinrich Harrer spend educating the young Dalai Lama in his Himalayan kingdom?
7 ; ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ (1952)

 

 

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