My Literary Town Trivia Quiz

For the publication of "The Green Mile" in 1996, Stephen King returned to the methods that had been used by Charles Dickens more than 100 years previously. He published the story in serial form, in six volumes of between eight and thirteen chapters each released on a monthly basis. King enjoyed the different challenge of writing in this way with the compulsion to get each volume ready giving him the impetus to complete the story. He also commented that he liked the different experience that the reader would get, experiencing the story more intensely and giving them weeks to speculate how the cliffhanger at the end of each volume might resolve, without the ability to read ahead to its conclusion.

The story of the novel is told by Paul Edgecombe recalling his time as a prison guard in the 1930s beginning with the arrival of condemned murderer and rapist John Coffey to death row. Coffey soon demonstrates remarkable powers of healing and the guards begin to suspect that he may not the criminal that he was convicted of being.

George Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier" contained two journeys that explored the social and political realities of 1930s Britain. The first journey was a physical one as Orwell visited the northern counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire, in which the eponymous industrial area of Wigan Pier was located. In these northern counties Orwell encountered great poverty and discovered the enormous physical and psychological stresses placed upon the miners of the region.

The second journey that Orwell recounted was his own ideological journey as a middle class believer in socialism. He explored how he came upon his own personal philosophy and bemoaned how fellow middle-class socialists had lost their connection to the working classes and the sense that compassion and solidarity for those people should be at the heart of any socialist outlook.

Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" was a modernist novel published in 1927. Its non-linear, stream of consciousness narrative style was original and highly influential. It centred on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Scottish island of Skye over the course of a decade but rather than focusing on plot, it is led by the inner thoughts of the main characters as the narrator moves from character to character and from time to time.

The themes of the novel touch on the nature of time, the fragility and power of memory and how desire can shape human experience and development. It is notable in feminist literature for its exploration of gender roles, contrasting the traditional femininity of Mrs Ramsay with the artist Lily Briscoe who fights against societal expectations as she struggles to express herself through her art.

"Bend Sinister" is a 1947 black comic novel in which Vladimir Nabokov displays his contempt for totalitarian regimes and the suppression of individual ideology and morality. Set in the fictional state of Padukgrad, it follows Professor Adam Krug, a philosopher and schoolfriend of the dictatorial leader Paduk.

When Krug is widowed he fights back against the state's attempts to force him into toeing the line, preferring to keep his intellectual freedom despite the threats to his personal well being and that of his son.

Initially written as a single-act play in 1955, Miller re-wrote "The View from the Bridge" as a two-act play following a disappointing initial run on Broadway. The bridge of the title is the Brooklyn Bridge, which looms over the community in Brooklyn in which the play is set.

The main protagonist is Eddie, an Italian American who works on the docks. He lives with his wife Beatrice and his niece Catherine, with whom Eddie has an unhealthy but unacknowledged obsession. When Catherine begins a new romance with Rudolpho, a relative of Beatrice who has recently arrived from Italy, Eddie does all he can to disrupt and end the affair with tragic results.

"Under Milk Wood" was a radio play in the form of a poem first broadcast in 1954. The play explores the lives and dreams of the residents of a small Welsh fishing village called Llareggub. Thomas uses the play to explore themes of love, loss, and human nature, through characters such as Captain Cat, a retired, blind sea captain; Polly Garter, a woman who is trapped in her memories of her dead lover; and Mr. Pugh, who dreams of escaping his overbearing wife by poisoning her.

"Jurassic Park" by Michael Crichton is a science fiction thriller that was first published in 1990. It was famously adapted into a movie directed by Steven Spielberg in 1993.

Following a successful experiment in "de-extinction" of several dinosaur species via genetic engineering, businessman John Hammond has opened a theme park on a remote island to put these giant resurrected species on display. A group of experts are invited by Hammond to preview the park before its grand opening to the public. Despite the high-tech security systems on the island, the dangers of messing with mother nature become apparent when the dinosaurs break free.

Japanese author Murakami's 2002 magical realism novel "Kafka on the Shore" explores the themes of fate, free will, and self-discovery. It was translated into English in 2005 and became a phenomenal success, winning the World Fantasy Award for 2006.

The novel has twin narratives following the separate but interweaved journeys of its two protagonists, 15-year-old Kafka Tamura and the elderly Mr. Nakata. Kafka's journey shadows that of Oedipus from Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex". Escaping his family home to try and avoid his fate, he is eventually sought by the police for the murder of his father. Mr. Nakata lost his memory in a childhood incident but gained an ability to communicate with cats. After killing a man who was cruel to cats, he goes on the road, a journey that leads to discovery of the truth about his lost memories.

Ben Okri's "The Famished Road" was the first in a trilogy that was completed by "Songs of Enchantment" (1993) and "Infinite Riches" (1998). Set in post-colonial Africa, the novel explores the journey of a young boy from the spirit world who lives among the mortals in a city's ghetto. The young boy refuses to return to his spiritual realm, choosing to stay in the protective love of his earthly father and mother, watching them as they re-shape the society and the politics of the world around them.

The novel won Okri the Man Booker Prize in 1991, making him the youngest ever recipient of the award at the time.

"The Crow Road" is a Scottish colloquialism referring to death. The death in question was that of the narrator's Uncle Rory, who disappeared in mysterious circumstances. His teenage nephew Prentice, inspired by what he learned about his family from Rory's unfinished manuscript, also called "The Crow Road", decided to investigate his disappearance and through his discoveries of family affairs, betrayals, and possibly even murder learned to appreciate his desires, his qualities and his relationship with his estranged father.

Cormac McCarthy's 2006 post-apocalyptic novel "The Road" is set in an unspecified land in an unspecified time following an unspecified catastrophe that has destroyed nearly all life on earth and caused all social order to break down. The story follows a father and son who are trying to survive the tough winter by travelling from the colder northern climes to the sea to the south.

They have meagre possessions, are near starvation and carry a gun with two bullets to allow them to avoid falling into the hands of cannibals.

The novel centres on the fierce protective love that the father has for his son and his desire to still teach him right and wrong as "the good guys" despite the harsh and unforgiving environment that they have to survive in.

"The Ghost Road" (1995) was the final part of Pat Barker's "Regeneration Trilogy" following "Regeneration" (1991) and "The Eye in the Door" (1993). The trilogy was set in the First World War and explored the psychological effects of World War I on British soldiers and the social and moral consequences of armed conflict.

Similarly to the first two books, it is initially set at Craiglockhart hospital in Scotland where soldiers, including the famous war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, were being treated for shell shock. Among the soldiers was the fictional Billy Prior who by the third book has become the central character in the tale. Recovered from shell shock and newly settled in a relationship, in "The Ghost Road" he is being treated by Dr Rivers, a real-life psychiatrist, who is trying to prepare him for a return to the front lines in France and the inevitable horrors that will be encountered there.

Monica Ali's "Brick Lane" (2003) is set in the area of East London that includes the eponymous street. The novel follows the life of Nazneen, a young Bangladeshi woman as she adapts to her new life in London following her arranged marriage to Chanu, a man twice her age. Exploring themes of cultural identity, gender roles, and generational conflict, the novel shows Nazneen's challenges as an immigrant, learning to find her own identity and building the confidence to break away from the cultural and societal expectations of her community.

This is done partly through her romantic relationship with Karim, a young British-born Bangladeshi, whose radical views jolt Nazneen into re-evaluating her own values and self-worth.

"Tobacco Road" by Erskine Caldwell was published in the midst of the Great Depression in 1932 and tells the story of Jeeter Lester, a man who, despite the ever-decreasing quality of life he and his family are experiencing, refuses to abandon working his Georgian farmland and seek work in the city. An ever-present shadow in the book's narrative is death, which is treated with dark humour and with inevitability as Jeeter and his family struggle with the fragility of everyday existence in extraordinary circumstances.

Pinkie Brown, the 17-year-old protagonist of Graham Greene's 1938 novel, is a violent gang leader who runs a slot machine racket in the English seaside town of Brighton. Pinkie kills Fred Hale, a journalist, in retaliation for a report on the racket that he had written, but realises that a young waitress named Rose has witnessed some of the events of that evening and can implicate him in the crime.

Knowing that wives cannot testify against their husbands, Pinkie courts and marries Rose. But a woman named Ida, who had met Hale on the day he died, has suspicions about the nature of his death and travels from London to Brighton to investigate.