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Quiz about Best Sellers of the 1960s 1
Quiz about Best Sellers of the 1960s 1

Best Sellers of the 1960s #1 Trivia Quiz


Here are some best-selling books from the 1960s. Some will surprise you; some you'll be glad to see again. Have a go at saying what they are.

A multiple-choice quiz by WIndswept. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
WIndswept
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
297,013
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
15
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
11 / 15
Plays
1769
Awards
Top 20% Quiz
Last 3 plays: Guest 47 (13/15), Guest 185 (13/15), jmel2 (10/15).
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Question 1 of 15
1. What is one of many books which consider the conforming side of Americans in the American life? Hint


Question 2 of 15
2. What is this international, posthumously published, novel which takes place in the time of the Italian reunification with Sicily? Hint


Question 3 of 15
3. This book was the winner of The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961, and it also became a film starring Gregory Peck. Hint


Question 4 of 15
4. Which 1962 book first spoke of a "global village" and introduced the idea, "the medium is the message"? Hint


Question 5 of 15
5. What is the name of the 1965 book, written by a frequent contender for the Presidency of the United States, that controversially took up the lack of safety in the automobile industry? Hint


Question 6 of 15
6. What was the name of the 1960 book written by the Arizona candidate for President? Hint


Question 7 of 15
7. What is the name of the short story (and later film) that deals with Herr von Hammerstein, the Havelocks, Major Gonzales and the Greek businessman Aristotle Kristatos? The novel previous to this story is "Goldfinger". Hint


Question 8 of 15
8. What book earned the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction in 1964? Hint


Question 9 of 15
9. What is the name of Truman Capote's 1966 book dealing with the killing of the Clutter family in Kansas? Hint


Question 10 of 15
10. President Kennedy authorized Robin Moore to go to a war zone (Vietnam) to do research into the nature of a particularly highly trained fighting force. What was the name of a particularly well-known book which came out of his research, which was later followed by a famous film? Hint


Question 11 of 15
11. What was the book dealing non-chronologically with the bombing of Dresden and with a character named Billy Pilgrim? He is a hero who famously becomes "unstuck in time." Hint


Question 12 of 15
12. What was the famous novel published by the wife of Charles Lindbergh? Note: this is not to be confused with the novel by Toni Morrison. Hint


Question 13 of 15
13. What irreverent 1964 book did a Beatle write which included line drawings, poems and paintings? Hint


Question 14 of 15
14. What is the name of the famous 1967 book of by the Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez? The entire novel takes place in the fictional town of Macondo. Hint


Question 15 of 15
15. Which is the 1969 novel whose central character is Sarah Woodruff or "Tragedy"? This woman who lives in Lyme Regis has been seduced and abandoned by a French sailor. Hint



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Most Recent Scores
Sep 29 2024 : Guest 47: 13/15
Sep 29 2024 : Guest 185: 13/15
Sep 06 2024 : jmel2: 10/15
Sep 02 2024 : Guest 24: 11/15

Score Distribution

quiz
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. What is one of many books which consider the conforming side of Americans in the American life?

Answer: A Nation of Sheep

William Lederer had collaborated with Eugene Burdick on various books, including "The Ugly American" (1958). His 1961 study, "A Nation of Sheep" concludes that when people are not informed thoroughly about their government's foreign policies and objectives, the effect becomes hypnotic, and the people as a result may turn to passive behavior since they are unable to make sound decisions on their own behalf.

This book looks at events involving Laos, Thailand, Formosa, Korea, and other international trouble spots to show that there is a high level of misinformation which make accurate understanding and action difficult for the public.
2. What is this international, posthumously published, novel which takes place in the time of the Italian reunification with Sicily?

Answer: The Leopard

Giuseppe Di Lampedusa wrote only one novel, his classic 1961 novel, "The Leopard". Interestingly, he never saw in print what is called one of the greatest novels written in the 20th century. The novel deals with an Italian aristocrat, trying to understand the changes overcoming the world he had known. Don Fabrizio rejects change and finds comfort in astronomy, among other things.
Readers have called this book "one of the great lonely books" and, to a person, have praised its terse and evocative writing style.
3. This book was the winner of The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961, and it also became a film starring Gregory Peck.

Answer: To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee, author of "To Kill a Mockingbird", was a descendant of Robert E. Lee. This prize-winning novel is narrated through the perspective of a six-year-old tomboy, Scout. It explores Atticus Finch's defense of Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white girl.

The story of the trial is juxtaposed with the story of Scout and her brother who have a friendship with the enigmatic Boo Radley. The novel is a coming of age novel. One of the main learning moments is that people are not to be judged by external factors only.

They find through much suffering that there is a goodness inside most people.
4. Which 1962 book first spoke of a "global village" and introduced the idea, "the medium is the message"?

Answer: The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man

Marshall McLuhan radically revised people's ideas of the written word and national boundary lines. To him, type itself had a radical effect on people, and he argued that, in fact, people could re-invent themselves in the printed word. His thinking shifted attention from interior private meanings in statements to seeing that the rapidity and internationality of the medium by the late twentieth century itself was the message. McLuhan explores differences between people's consciousness in a movable type world and, later, in an electronic age.
McLuhan considers four stages: 1)Oral tribe culture 2)Manuscript culture 3)Gutenberg galaxy and 4)Electronic age.
One simple interpretation of this process should indicate some implications of its truly far-reaching and revolutionary process: "For McLuhan the coming of the electronic age will precipitate a return to the tribalism and pleasure in diversity that collapsed in the age of movable type." (The Electronic Labyrinth)
5. What is the name of the 1965 book, written by a frequent contender for the Presidency of the United States, that controversially took up the lack of safety in the automobile industry?

Answer: Unsafe at Any Speed:The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile

In 1965, Ralph Nader argued that American car manufacturers resisted efforts to improve car safety--both in terms of not spending money for research and development and also not putting in place safety improvements which would protect the American driver.

He became very famous for his writing on the Chevrolet Corvair, a vehicle which had a built-in defect with the tire pressure. His book also took on problems resulting from some cars' gigantic stylistic features.
6. What was the name of the 1960 book written by the Arizona candidate for President?

Answer: Conscience of a Conservative

"Conscience of a Conservative" was ghostwritten by a relative of William F. Buckley. Barry Goldwater and his book had an enormous effect on conservatives in the United States. Some people say that they paved the way for the popularity of Ronald Reagan.
7. What is the name of the short story (and later film) that deals with Herr von Hammerstein, the Havelocks, Major Gonzales and the Greek businessman Aristotle Kristatos? The novel previous to this story is "Goldfinger".

Answer: For Your Eyes Only

Before "For Your Eyes Only", Ian Fleming had written full-length novels. "For Your Eyes Only" has five short stories in all: "From a View to a Kill", "For Your Eyes Only", "Quantum of Solace", "Risico", and "The Hildebrand Rarity".

In the 1981 film with Roger Moore and Carole Bouquet, Agent 007 is searching for a lost encryption device.
8. What book earned the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction in 1964?

Answer: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

Richard Hofstadter wrote a book which questioned the democratization of education and the corresponding blurring of the lines between education and excellence once access to education became an expectation. In short, this novel was concerned about a growing suspicion of the mind, of learning, of public intellectuals.

In his historic overview of the intellectual in America, Hofstader wrote that intellectuals are "felt to have played an important part in breaking the mold in which America was cast, and in consequence he gets more than his share of the blame" (43).
9. What is the name of Truman Capote's 1966 book dealing with the killing of the Clutter family in Kansas?

Answer: In Cold Blood

With this book, Capote became famous for inventing the non-fiction novel.
In it, Capote mingles fact and fiction, historical records and psychological interpretation. Capote took six years to complete the novel. The reader sees his characters, Richard "Dick" Hickock and the tormented Perry Smith, both as objects of a police chase and as complex characters on their own in memories of their own pasts.
Truman Capote's involvement in writing this book was brought to life in the 2005 film "Capote" starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, who won an Academy Award for his rendition of Truman Capote.
10. President Kennedy authorized Robin Moore to go to a war zone (Vietnam) to do research into the nature of a particularly highly trained fighting force. What was the name of a particularly well-known book which came out of his research, which was later followed by a famous film?

Answer: The Green Berets

Robin Moore called his book "a book of truth." In his introduction, he stated that finally he found it would work better as a piece of fiction than a work of non-fiction.

The film "The Green Berets" starred John Wayne, George Takei, David Janssen, Jim Hutton, and Aldo Ray,

Incidentally, in October 1961, President John F. Kennedy authorized the wearing of the Green Beret by the special forces.
11. What was the book dealing non-chronologically with the bombing of Dresden and with a character named Billy Pilgrim? He is a hero who famously becomes "unstuck in time."

Answer: Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death

This 1969 novel is a mix of genres--science fiction, philosophical speculation, non-linear narrative. Simultaneously, Billy Pilgrim is in Tralfamadore, in Dresden, in the War, walking in deep snow before his German capture, in his married life in the U.S.A. after the war in the 1950s, and in the moment of his murder.
The novel also plays mercilessly with subjects of identity--Billy says and thinks, "That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book." The book is both an anti-war novel and a profound piece of post-modernist writing.
12. What was the famous novel published by the wife of Charles Lindbergh? Note: this is not to be confused with the novel by Toni Morrison.

Answer: Dearly Beloved

Anne Morrow was the wife of the pilot Charles Lindbergh. She was the first woman to win a first-class glider pilot's license. Charles and Anne were the first to fly from Africa to South America. In the later part of their lives, their marital infidelities came to light. They had, however, a highly important 45-year marriage which had to bear the famous kidnapping of their son.

"Dearly Beloved" is a best-selling novel published in 1962 which, on the surface, focuses on a June wedding. During the ceremony, there is profound speculation on the nature and potentials of matrimony, positive and negative. Many readers compare it to her conclusions in her famous "Gift from the Sea".
13. What irreverent 1964 book did a Beatle write which included line drawings, poems and paintings?

Answer: In His Own Write

John Lennon impressed readers by his verbal fluency--his punning, artful mispellings, strange imagery and non-linear patterns. This book was followed by the 1965 "A Spaniard in the Works".

Here is an excerpt from Lennon's 1964 book:
"There were no flies on Frank that morning - after all why not? He was a responsible citizen with a wife and child, wasn't he? It was a typical Frank morning and with an agility that defies description he leapt into the bathroom onto the scales. To his great harold he discovered he was twelve inches more tall heavy! He couldn't believe it and his blood raised to his head, causing a mighty red colouring." (beatlesnumber9.com)
14. What is the name of the famous 1967 book of by the Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez? The entire novel takes place in the fictional town of Macondo.

Answer: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel García Márquez's novel takes place over a hundred year period. Some readers say actually it takes more time than that. This uncertainty about its actual length spills over into its characterization. The novel introduces many features of what will be known as magical realism in its manner and method. The novel presents seven generations associated with the Buendia family. It becomes a speculation of time as non-linear. The novel deals simultaneously with both character and place. Its conclusion is quite a surprise after seeing the timeless themes repeating and overlapping. (The town of Macondo will be destroyed.)

In 1967, The New York Times called the novel "the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race."
15. Which is the 1969 novel whose central character is Sarah Woodruff or "Tragedy"? This woman who lives in Lyme Regis has been seduced and abandoned by a French sailor.

Answer: The French Lieutenant's Woman

Sarah's characterization in the novel is double. That is, she is at one time a woman who has been sorely misused. At the same time, she is also sly and calculating.

Of course, the novel became an excellent movie in 1981 directed by Karel Reisz with Meryl Streep playing Sarah.

One of the fascinating features of John Fowles' novel is that it has three (yes three) conclusions. In this highly complex poststructural novel, the narrator appears complexly at the novel's end.

Ultimately, the novel is not just about the actions of the characters; it is also about the control or lack of control an author can have in his/her own novel.
Source: Author WIndswept

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