The Fruits of a Writer's Imagination Quiz

Number 1 is on a pile of oranges, and the book in question is 'ORANGES Are Not the Only Fruit'. Like Winterson, the heroine's name is Jeanette and she comes from a religious background, having grown up in a Pentecostal household in Lancashire. Winterson later wrote a memoir about her childhood, 'Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?', named after a comment her adoptive mother made about her lesbianism. The chapters in 'Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit' are named after books from the Old Testament. The fictional Jeanette's mother adopts her because she wants to acquire a child in a sexless manner, and train her to be a servant to G-d, with the expectation that she will become a missionary.

Jeanette scares other children at her school by constantly talking about Hell, and the teachers are concerned about her religious beliefs. As a teenager, she meets a girl called Melanie who works at a fish stall and Melanie goes to church with her; the two then begin a relationship. When the pastor confronts them, Melanie repents, while Jeanette runs off to the house of an older lesbian, Miss Jewsbury. The congregation attempt to exorcise Jeanette. She later goes out with Katy, another convert, and is thrown out of her home and has to work in various jobs to get by. Jeanette does return home to visit her mother, who is still religious but has softened towards her.

Number 2 is on a pile of peaches, and the book in question is 'PEACHES for Monsieur Le Curé'. It is the third book in the 'Chocolat' series, set in the fictional French village of Lansquenet-sur-Tannes and starring Vianne Rocher, a chocolatier and part-time witch. In 'Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé', Vianne is living on a houseboat on the Seine with her husband Roux and daughters Anouk and Rosette; however, she returns to Lansquenet when she receives a letter from Armande Voizin, who had died several years previously, and which her grandson Luc had been instructed to send when he turned 21. In her letter, Armande says that she believes Lansquenet will need Vianne again one day.

Vianne returns to the village during Ramadan and is reunited with Francis Reynaud, the local priest and her old enemy, who is having trouble with a Moroccan Muslim community on the other side of the river. Vianne's old chocolaterie had been converted into a madrassah, run by Inès Bencharki, but the madrassah was burned down and Reynaud is accused of arson. Inès wears the niqab and, like Vianne, is the single mother of a daughter. Reynaud's job is also at risk from a new priest, Henri Lemaître. Vianne moves into Armande's old house and gets to know the Moroccan community.

Number 3 is on a pile of plums, and the graphic novel in question is 'Chicken with PLUMS'. It tells the story of Nasser-Ali Khan, a relative of Marjane Satrapi who played the tar (a lute-like instrument played in West and Central Asia) and violin. Faranguisse, Nasser-Ali's wife, smashes his violin after an argument about his lack of attention to their children. Nasser-Ali goes out to search for a new violin and buys a Stradivarius, but is unable to play it because of his depression.

Nasser-Ali's life flashes before his eyes, and he dreams of Irane, a shopkeeper's daughter, with whom he fell in love as a young man. He also has visions of the future; he sees his daughter Lili fall in love with an actor, only for him to die and Lili to become addicted to gambling. Lili's brother moves to America and one of his daughters has a son, Jimmy-Nasser, who she names after Nasser-Ali. Meanwhile, Faranguisse cooks Nasser-Ali chicken with plums, his favourite meal, in an attempt to get him out of his depression, but he refuses to eat it as he does not forgive her for breaking his violin. Nasser-Ali eventually dies and Irane attends his funeral.

Number 4 appears on a pile of cherries, and the play in question is 'The CHERRY Orchard', Chekhov's final play, which is based heavily around the theme of social change. The Russian landowner in question is Madame Lyubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya, who moves to France after the death of her son, but returns to Russia when Yermolai Alexeyevitch Lopakhin, a merchant, informs her that the family estate is due to be auctioned off. The estate includes a cherry orchard, and Lopakhin proposes to have summer cottages built on the estate, but this would mean the destruction of the orchard.

In the third act of the play, Lopakhin buys the land himself and plans to have the orchard cut down. Anya, Madame Ranevskaya's daughter, asks him to wait until the family have left before beginning the work. The house is boarded up and Madame Ranevskaya and her family leave but Firs, an old manservant, is trapped inside the house and resigns himself to his inevitable death.

Number 5 appears on a pile of lemons, and the book in question is 'The Particular Sadness of LEMON Cake'. Rose Edelstein, the girl in question, discovers that she can taste people's emotions in the food they make when her mother Lane bakes her a cake for her ninth birthday. When Rose eats the cake, she realises Lane feels oppressed. She later collapses after eating one of Lane's pies and has to be taken to hospital.

As Rose gets older, she tries to avoid eating her mother's cooking, but at the age of twelve, she eats her mother's roast beef and realises Lane is having an affair. As an adult, she gets a job in a restaurant as a dishwasher. She later discovers that her grandfather had to cover his face because he smelled people's emotions; her brother Joseph also disappears temporarily after partially transforming into a chair. Rose decides to use her power to help people, and trains as a chef and counselor.

Number 6 appears on a pile of avocados, and the book in question is 'AVOCADO Baby', one of the few children's books in this quiz. It tells the story of the Hargraves family, who want their tiny new baby (of unknown sex) to grow up to be big and strong. However, the baby refuses to eat anything until Mrs Hargraves gives it an avocado that the children find in the fruit bowl. The baby becomes strong enough to break out of its cot and high chair, and pull a cartload of children up a hill.

Mrs Hargraves continues to feed the baby avocados. A burglar breaks into the house, but the baby picks up a broom and chases him away, and Mr Hargraves puts a 'Beware of the Baby' sign on the front gate. The baby continues to grow stronger, and moves furniture and pushes the family car. When some bullies attack the baby's older siblings, it picks them up and throws them into a puddle.

Number 7 appears on a pile of tomatoes (not green ones, sorry!) and the book in question is 'Fried Green TOMATOES at the Whistle Stop Cafe', which was made into the film 'Fried Green Tomatoes' in 1991. The two women in question are Evelyn Couch and Ninny Threadgoode. Evelyn meets Ninny while visiting her elderly mother-in-law in a nursing home; the two become friends and Ninny tells her stories of growing up in Whistle Stop, Alabama, where her friend Ruth and sister-in-law Imogene (Idgie) ran a cafe.

Ninny was raised by the Threadgoodes and married Idgie's brother. Idgie falls in love with Ruth, who marries Frank Bennett, an abusive man. Idgie sets up the Whistle Stop Cafe, which becomes popular with hobos, and is forced to close when the local railway yard shuts down. Many years later, Idgie and Big George, a handyman, are arrested for Bennett's murder, but a minister whose son she previously helped lies about her and Big George being at a revival when the murder happened. It is later revealed that Big George's mother Sipsey murdered Bennett, and Big George barbecued his body and fed it to the detectives investigating the murder.

Evelyn gets a job selling Mary Kay Cosmetics, inspired by Ninny's stories. When Ninny dies, she leaves her belongings to Evelyn.

Number 8 appears on a pile of mangoes, and the book in question is 'The House on MANGO Street', Sandra Cisneros' first novel. It is told in the form of multiple vignettes about the protagonist, Esperanza Cordero, and her family and friends. Like Cisneros herself, Esperanza is of Mexican-American/Chicana descent and lives in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. Esperanza's family are constantly moving and her parents claim their new home on Mango Street is only temporary. Esperanza feels suffocated and yearns for a house like the ones she sees on television.

When Esperanza reaches her teens, she discovers boys and befriends a girl called Sally whose father abuses her. Sally abandons Esperanza at a carnival and Esperanza is attacked by a group of men. She becomes desperate to leave Mango Street as she realises how many of the women in her community have suffered at the hands of the men in their lives; however, when she has her fortune told, she realises that Mango Street has made her the person she is today. She decides that when she leaves, she will come back to help the people she left behind.

Number 9 is on a pile of red apples, and the book in question is 'APPLE Bough', known as 'Traveling Shoes' in the US. Like many of Noel Streatfeild's books, it is about a family involved in the performing arts; in this case, the family are the Forums and one of the boys, Sebastian, is a talented young violinist who tours the world. Their parents, David and Polly, are a pianist and an artist, and have named their children after famous musicians; Sebastian is named for Johann Sebastian Bach. However, the other Forum children, Myra (after Dame Myra Hess), Wolfie (after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) and Ethel (after Dame Ethel Smyth), resent having to travel constantly as they miss Apple Bough, their home, but they have no choice as Polly wants to keep the family together.

Wolfie wants to write pop music, much to his father's disapproval, while Ethel wants to dance. This being a Noel Streatfeild book, she meets Madame Fidolia, of the Children's Academy featured in 'Ballet Shoes'. Myra, the oldest, does not have a talent and wishes she could go back to Apple Bough; however, her grandfather encourages her to start 'Operation Home', a campaign for a permanent home.

Number 10 appears on some bananas hanging up, and the story in question is 'A Perfect Day for BANANAfish'. It is one of the stories in 'For Esme: With Love and Squalor', although it has also been published as a novella, and features Seymour Glass, a recurring character in Salinger's stories, on honeymoon in Florida with his new wife Muriel. Seymour is based on Salinger; like Salinger, he is deeply interested in Eastern mysticism and suffers from PTSD after serving in the Second World War.

Muriel talks to her mother on the phone, and her mother is worried about Seymour, finding him unpredictable and strange. Seymour meets a little girl, Sybil Carpenter, on the beach and talks to her about an imaginary fish called a bananafish, which grows too large and dies after eating too many bananas. Seymour goes back to his hotel and has an argument with a woman in a lift, accusing her of staring at his feet. While Muriel is sleeping, he kills himself by shooting himself in the head.