Literature Quiz #4 - Sunday Quiz

Round 1: Dystopias

10 questions about dystopian literature.

Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to take part in a brutal reality TV show in which dystopian trilogy by Suzanne Collins?

What 2006 post-apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy book details the grueling journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months?

"The Trial" is a novel about a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor to the reader. Who wrote it?

What novel by P. D. James is set in England in 2021, centres on the results of mass infertility?

Which Stephen King centers on a pandemic of a weaponized strain of influenza that kills almost the entire world population?

A Victorian scientist travels to the far-off future, where he finds a carefree world occupied by childlike people in which H. G. Wells novel?

What Kazuo Ishiguro novel tells the story of Kathy H., who describes herself as a carer looking after organ donors?

What 1957 novel by Ayn Rand, her fourth and final novel, was set in a dystopian United States at an unspecified time, in which the country has a "National Legislature" instead of Congress and a "Head of State" instead of a President?

Which novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson depicts a dystopian ageist future society in which both population and the consumption of resources are maintained in equilibrium by requiring the death of everyone reaching the age of 21?

Which 2011 debut novel of Ernest Cline is set in a dystopia in 2045, and follows protagonist Wade Watts on his search for an Easter egg in a worldwide virtual reality game?

Round 2: British Novels

10 questions about novels by British authors.

Which novel, written by Jane Austen, follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet and is considered a romantic novel of manners?

Who wrote "To the Lighthouse", a 1927 novel which centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920?

What coming-of-age story is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel, which depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip?

First published as a 19-volume monthly serial, which novel by William Makepeace Thackeray follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars?

Which children's book by Kenneth Graham focuses on four anthropomorphised animals: Mole, Rat (a European water vole), Toad, and Badger?

First published in book form in 1895 and featuring Jude Fawley, a working-class young man, a stonemason who dreams of becoming a scholar. What is Thomas Hardy's last completed novel?

Which novel by William Golding focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempt to govern themselves?

What novel by Ian McEwan is set in three time periods, 1935 England, Second World War England and France, and present-day England?

Who wrote "Robinson Crusoe", with the first edition crediting the work's protagonist as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person?

What 1726 prose by Jonathan Swift, satirising human nature, chronicles the four voyages of it's protagonist?

Round 3: Autobiographies

10 questions about autobiographies.

Private Parts, released in 1993, is the first book by which American radio personality who had the number one morning program in New York City?

Which 2016 book details the author, Trevor Noah, growing up in his native South Africa during the apartheid era as the mixed-race son of a white father and a black mother?

What is the name of the book of the writings from the Dutch-language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family?

What is the title of the book by South African President Nelson Mandela; which profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison?

What is the title of the memoir by Barack Obama released in 2020, the first of a planned two-volume series?

Open: An Autobiography is a memoir written by which eight-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1 in tennis?

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life is a memoir, by which American actor who was nominated for 'Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy' for five films in 1987 (and won none)?

The 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler can be directly translated into English two ways, name either.

Published in 1995, four years after the release of the last Star Trek motion picture starring the entire original cast, "I Am Not Spock" is the first volume of which actor's autobiography?

What is the title of the book by Carrie Fisher based on her one-woman stage show?

Round 4: Side-kicks

10 questions all about side-kicks in literature.

Which character is present in the first scene of Hamlet, and is accompanying Barnardo and Marcellus on watch duty?

What is the full name of Frodo Baggins' gardener, who travelled with him through Middle Earth to the Cracks of Doom?

Which character in the Inspector Morse crime novels by Colin Dexter plays the "sidekick" to Morse?

The first of the main fairy characters to appear, and a significant influence on events in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Who is a mischievous fairy, sprite, or jester?

Who is the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Bertie Wooster in a series of comedic short stories and novels by P. G. Wodehouse?

One of the main characters of Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe. Robinson names a man with whom he cannot at first communicate, because they first meet on what day?

Who acts as squire to Don Quixote and provides comments throughout the novel, known as sanchismos, that are a combination of broad humour, ironic Spanish proverbs, and earthy wit?

An experienced galactic hitch-hiker and alien journalist, and a field researcher for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, who is Arthur Dent's friend – and rescuer?

Watson is Sherlock Holmes' best friend, assistant and, in most of the cases redacted by him, flatmate. What is his first name?

Bill Watterson created Calvin, a precocious, mischievous and adventurous six-year-old boy and his sardonic stuffed tiger called what?

Round 5: Closing Lines

Name the novel the closing line is from.

"After all, tomorrow is another day." - Margaret Mitchell (1936)

"She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously." - John Steinbeck (1939)

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." - F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

"He is coming, and I am here." - Audrey Niffenegger (2003)

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." - Charles Dickens (1859)

"Up out of the lampshade, startled by the overhead light, flew a large nocturnal butterfly that began circling the room. The strains of the piano and violin rose up weakly from below." - Milan Kundera (1984)

"I'm fine. I have bad dreams but I never saw Mister Duck again. I play video games. I smoke a little dope. I got my thousand-yard stare. I carry a lot of scars. I like the way that sounds. I carry a lot of scars." - Alex Garland (1996)

"I ran with the wind blowing in my face, and a smile as wide as the valley of Panjsher on my lips. I ran." - Khaled Hosseini (2003)

"This stone is entirely blank. The only thought in cutting it was of the essentials of the grave, and there was no other care than to make this stone long enough and narrow enough to cover a man. No name can be read there." - Victor Hugo (1862)

"A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR. I am haunted by humans." - Markus Zusak (2005)

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