Non-fiction Photos Trivia Quiz

Answer: Of Wolves and Men

Barry H. Lopez (1945-2020) was an American author of both fiction and non-fiction. In "Of Wolves and Men", Lopez reviews historical and scientific data, as well as literature and mythology, to provide information about how mankind has interacted with wolves over the years.

For example, he suggests that scientists define wolves by data points, while many Native Americans see the wolf as a spiritual symbol. Using his own experiences with both wild and captive wolves, Lopez tries to get rid of folklore that suggests that wolves are demons, and instead he argues for the preservation of wolves as a species.

This book won the National Book Award for Nonfiction when it was published in 1978.

Answer: Cosmetology

Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) wrote "A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes" (1988) as a way of explaining to non-scientists about how the universe is thought to have begun, and how it may end in the future. The language in the book appealed to readers because of its non-technical nature.

For example, one chapter is entitled "Black Holes Ain't So Black". In this non-fiction work, Hawking discusses theories about how the universe began, building blocks of the universe, space, time, gravity, black holes, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the scientific search for a unifying theory that ties them all together. With over 25 million copies sold, the book became a bestseller.

It has also been translated into over 40 languages since its original publication.

Answer: In Cold Blood

Truman Capote's 1966 book "In Cold Blood" details the quadruple murders of a family in Holcomb, Kansas that took place in 1959. When Capote heard of the crimes, he travelled to Holcomb with his friend Harper Lee (author of "To Kill a Mockingbird"). He started investigating the crime before the murderers were caught six weeks after the murders.

He interviewed a number of important figures, including the two men who were convicted in the case. Capote wrote the book as things were unfolding in the case, including notes that he took during the trial and during jailhouse interviews.

The book was one of the first in the true crime genre, however some critics suggest that Capote changed some of the facts to work better with the story. Nevertheless, it went on to spawn critical acclaim from some, as well as a number of very successful movies

Answer: H is for Hawk

Helen McDonald, a respected photojournalist and falconer, wrote this non-fiction work about healing in the wake of her father's sudden death in 2007. When he passed, she purchased a young Eurasian goshawk that she named Mabel. The book details how she trained Mabel as she grieved for her father.

The book also contains what she calls a "shadow biography" of TH White who also wrote a book about his attempts to train a goshawk entitled "The Goshawk" (1951). "H is for Hawk" (2014) received a number of awards when it was released, including the Samuel Johnson Prize (2014), the Costa Book of the Year (2014), and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (2016).

This book was also nominated for, but did not win the Duff Cooper Prize (2014), the Thwaites Wainwright Prize (2015), and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction (2015).

Answer: Football (soccer)

Nick Hornby published "Fever Pitch" in 1992. It is described as an autobiographical essay that details Hornby's discovery of football, and his life as a fan of the Arsenal Football Club in Highbury. The chapters are presented in chronological order, starting with when the author discovered football as a child. Most, but not all, of the matches that he discusses cover Arsenal games. Each chapter is centred on a different football match and his memories of his own personal life at the time that the game was played.

For example, in the chapters that detail events during his time while he was away at university in Cambridge, matches of Cambridge United and Cambridge City are discussed. "Fever Pitch" was very popular in the UK, with over one million copies sold there alone.

It also won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award in 1992.

Answer: Paris

"A Moveable Feast" by Ernest Hemingway was published posthumously in 1964. Hemingway had lived in Paris in the 1920s, where he interacted with many others who became important cultural icons such as Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and many others. During this time, he filled notebooks with his thoughts and memories, but when he left Paris in the late 1920s, he stored all of the notes in trunks in the basement of the Hotel Ritz.

In 1956, Hemingway was in Paris having lunch at the Ritz with the hotel chairman Charles Ritz when he was reminded of the trunks. Charles Ritz had the trunks brought up, and, according to witnesses, Hemingway seemed particularly pleased when he spotted the notebooks amongst a collection of receipts, hunting paraphernalia, memos, correspondence, racing forms, and other things that had been stored. The notebooks were transcribed, and Hemingway worked to change them into "The Moveable Feast". After his death in 1961, his wife provided final copy edits for the manuscript and published the work in 1964.

Answer: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Malcom Gladwell is a Canadian journalist and researcher whose topics of interest often deal with research in psychology and sociology. In "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" (2005), he discusses how it is often better for humans to make snap decisions without overthinking the problem.

His argument is that if too much information is considered, extraneous material interferes with the important things that need to be considered in order to make a sound decision. Gladwell provides evidence from examples in disciplines such as science, medicine, sales, advertising, sports, speed dating, gambling, and military decisions to support his notion that sometimes humans are better off to "thin slice", or just take a small amount of information to make a decision.

Answer: Michelle McNamara

"I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer" by Michelle McNamara was released in 2018 almost two years after McNamara died in her sleep of an accidental overdose of medication. The release date also occurred about two months before an arrest was made in the case.

The book details the crimes of one man who had committed burglary, and raped and murdered individuals in various locales in California in the 1970s and 1980s. McNamara was the first journalist to link all of the serial criminal's crimes because the perpetrator had moved around and police forces did not share much information with one another when the criminal was active. The perpetrator also changed his crimes from voyeurism to burglary, then rape, then rape and murder of individual women, and finally escalating to murdering couples. McNamara's work of pulling all of the information from the various unsolved cases into one coherent case spurred law enforcement to re-investigate the crimes using 21st century technology. In April, 2018, police offices arrested a suspect who was found guilty of the crimes and sent to prison for life.

Answer: China

"Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China" by author Jung Chang is a combined biography/autobiography of three generations of women in her family. She tells of her grandmother Yu-fang who had her feet bound at the age of two. She is sent to be a concubine of a wealthy warlord and conceives Chang's mother after only one conjugal visit. When the general becomes ill, Chang takes her child Bao Qin/De-hong and returns to her own parents' home, sending word that the child has died, out of fear that the general's wife will have the child killed.

Bao Qin/De-hong grows up and joins the Communist Party when she is only fifteen years of age. She meets and marries a fellow party member a few years later. Jung Chang is born while her parents are active in the Communist Party. Her mother also gives birth to four of Chang's siblings. During the Cultural Revolution, Chang's family becomes a target of the Red Guard, and her father passes away.

Chang becomes a member of the Red Guard as a teenager, but privately objects to their brutal treatment of some citizens. She is sent away for "re-education", then returns to attend university. There, she studies English, and eventually gets a scholarship to study in England. She remained living there after her studies, returning to China now and then with permission from the government.

Answer: The Holocaust

Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) published his memoir entitled "Night" in 1960. Although it is only about 100 pages long, it details the horrors of life in two Nazi concentration camps - Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944-1945. In the book, the reader learns how Wiesel and his father are forced by the Nazis to migrate from Romania to the concentration camps. Wiesel discusses the loss of his faith in God that occurs because of the depravities that he witnesses. Then, in the final days of the war, his father gets sick with dysentery and dies after a beating. Inmates were freed a few months later. He returns to his faith after the war.

The book has been very well-received, and has continued to sell well early in the 21st century. After the book's publication, Wiesel received a number of medals, honours, and recognitions. He also received more than 90 honorary degrees. The book was also awarded a number of prizes for non-fiction work, and specifically, for work about Holocaust experiences.