The Battle of the Books Trivia Quiz

Answer: American Civil War

The 1939 film of "Gone with the Wind" is so famous that it is easy to forget that Margaret Mitchell's original 1936 novel was already a runaway bestseller, and the most popular work of fiction in America in both 1936 and 1937. Set during the American Civil War (1861-65) and its aftermath, it narrates the dramatic life of the young Scarlett O'Hara, in particular her love for the rakish Rhett Butler. Scarlett's home is in Georgia, one of the rebellious Confederate states, and her struggles to maintain the family plantation, Tara, following the Confederacy's defeat, form a major theme of the book.

Answer: American Civil War

"Cold Mountain" by Charles Frazier was published in 1997 and tells of a Confederate soldier named Inman who deserts the army after being wounded towards the end of the American Civil War, and sets off to walk home to find Ada Monroe, the woman he loves. Ada meanwhile struggles to maintain her family farm near Cold Mountain in North Carolina, with the help of a homeless woman named Ruby. Although Inman eventually finds his way home, he is tragically shot dead by the last surviving member of a group of Confederate soldiers sent to arrest him for desertion.

The novel was filmed in 2003 by Anthony Minghella, with Jude Law as Inman, Nicole Kidman as Ada and Renée Zellweger as Ruby.

Answer: World War Two

The satirical novel "Catch-22" was written by Joseph Heller and published in 1961. It deals with the slightly surreal experiences of a group of US airmen based on an Italian island during the Second World War. In 1994 Heller published a sequel entitled "Closing Time".

The title of the novel refers to a paradoxical situation invented by Heller: one way for an airman to avoid being sent on dangerous missions was to claim insanity. However, wanting to avoid danger is itself a proof of sanity, so anyone making this claim had effectively proved they weren't insane. The term has since become well-known even by people who haven't read the book and is used to refer to any paradoxical situation which contains an inherent contradiction.

Answer: World War Two

"Schindler's Ark" was written by the Australian novelist Thomas Keneally and first published in 1982. It tells, in fictionalised form, the true story of the German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of around 1200 Jews during the Second World War, employing them in his factories and preventing their transfer to Auschwitz towards the end of the war.

The book won the prestigious Booker Prize for Fiction and was famously filmed by Steven Spielberg in 1993 as "Schindler's List", the name it had been given for its American publication.

Answer: World War Two

"Men at Arms" (1952) is the first novel in Evelyn Waugh's "Sword of Honour" trilogy, inspired by his own experiences during the Second World War. The protagonist, Guy Crouchback, joins the Army at the outbreak of war, in a fit of patriotic fervour inspired by his family's long and distinguished military record. The novel contains elements of farce reminiscent of Waugh's early novels such as "Decline and Fall" and "Vile Bodies", although it ends with a disastrous military operation and the death of one of the main characters.

The next two novels in the trilogy, "Officers and Gentlemen" (1955) and "Unconditional Surrender" (1961), chronicle the further destruction of Guy's patriotic ideals and conclude with his cynical acceptance of the wastefulness of modern warfare.

Answer: Vietnam War

"Fields of Fire" is a 1978 novel by James Webb, which focuses on the experiences of three very different American soldiers serving in Vietnam: a young volunteer fresh out of Harvard University nicknamed "Senator", a streetwise youth known only as "Snake", and Lieutenant Robert Hodges, a career soldier from a military family.

James Webb based the novel closely on his own experiences in Vietnam, during which he was highly decorated. He went on have a successful political career, including representing Virginia as Senator from 2007-13.

Answer: Vietnam War

The writer Tim O'Brien served in the US Army in Vietnam from 1969-70, and wrote several books inspired by his service. "The Things They Carried" was published in 1990 and is a series of connected short stories about the members of an infantry platoon.

One of the characters is named Tim O'Brien, but the author has stated that the character is not himself, but merely a fictional character sharing his name. The book has been acclaimed as one of the best books about the Vietnam War.

Answer: World War One

"All Quiet on the Western Front" by the German writer Erich Maria Remarque is one of the most famous novels about the First World War. It first appeared in 1928 serialised in a German newspaper and was published in book form early in 1929. It was immediately popular and an English translation by Arthur Wheen appeared later that same year. Its brutal and unsparing depiction of life in the trenches resonated strongly with those who had survived the war, and helped to ensure it was not forgotten.

A 1930 Hollywood film directed by Lewis Milestone was also acclaimed, and more recently a 2022 German-language version won four Oscars, including "Best International Feature Film".

Answer: World War One

"Regeneration" is the first novel in Pat Barker's trilogy of novels about the First World War and was published in 1991. It is set largely in and around the real-life Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh, where shell-shocked soldiers were sent for treatment. A number of the novel's characters are based on real people, such as the psychiatrist William Rivers and the writers Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves. A key theme of the novel is Rivers' ambivalence about his work, in which he successfully treats shell-shocked soldiers only for them to be returned to the horrors of the trenches.

The other novels in the so-called "Regeneration Trilogy" are "The Eye in the Door" (1993) and "The Ghost Road" (1995), the last of which won the Booker Prize.

Answer: World War One

"Birdsong" by Sebastian Faulkes was published in 1993. The male protagonist, Stephen Wraysford, is a British Army officer who serves on the Western Front throughout the war, while a parallel plot set in the 1970s follows his grand-daughter Elizabeth as she discovers his wartime journals.

A third key character, Jack Firebrace, is an ex-miner whose job is to dig under the German trenches and plant mines to blow them up. The claustrophobic scenes set in the dark, cramped, dangerous tunnels under the trenches are particularly successful.