Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Which literary character has the following New Year's resolutions (opening the first installment of the series of novels written about that character)?
"(1) I will help the blind across the road; (2) I will hang my trousers up; (3) I will put the sleeves back on my records; (4) I will not start smoking; (5) I will stop squeezing my spots; (6) I will be kind to the dog; (7) I will help the poor and ignorant; (8) After hearing the disgusting noises from downstairs last night, I have also vowed never to drink alcohol."
2. Which highly original and critically acclaimed pseudo-historical novel begins like this?
"Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic. They were gentleman-magicians, which is to say they had never harmed any one by magic - nor ever done any one the slightest good. In fact, to own the truth, not one of these magicians had ever cast the smallest spell, nor by magic caused one leaf to tremble upon a tree, made one mote of dust to alter its course or changed a single hair upon any one's head. But, with this one minor reservation, they enjoyed a reputation as some of the wisest and most magical gentlemen in Yorkshire."
3. While in Dublin, I bought a German novel that was translated into English, mostly out of "professional curiosity". Have you read it, too? Here's an excerpt...
"One part of the avalanche split off to the west of the Faroe Islands and came to a halt in the underwater banks surrounding the Icelandic Basin. Another part headed along the mountain range between Iceland and the Faroes. But the bulk thundered down the Faroe-Shetland Channel as though it were a chute. The same basin that had absorbed the Storegga Slide thousands of years earlier was filled by an even bigger avalanche, pushing forwards relentlessly. Then the edge of the shelf broke away. Over a stretch of fifty kilometres the shelf snapped off. And that was just the start."
4. Which heroine's unmistakable voice is telling us this bit of information about the world she is living in?
"It had only been two years since Addison v. Clark. The court case gave us a revised version of what life was, and what death wasn't. Vampirism was legal in the good ol' U.S. of A. We were one of the few countries to acknowledge them. The immigration people were having fits trying to keep foreign vampires from immigrating in, well, flocks. All sorts of questions were being fought out in court. Did heirs have to give back their inheritance? Were you widowed if your spouse became undead? Was it murder to slay a vampire? There was even a movement to give them the vote. Times were a-changing."
5. One of the greatest psychological thrillers of all time (at least in my humble opinion) contains this passage:
"Why don't you go?" she said. "We none of us want you. He doesn't want you, he never did. He can't forget her. He wants to be alone in the house again, with her. It's you that ought to be lying there in the church crypt, not her. It's you who ought to be dead, not [her]." She pushed me towards the open window. I could see the terrace below me grey and indistinct in the white wall of fog. "Look down there," she said. "It's easy, isn't it? Why don't you jump? It wouldn't hurt, not to break your neck. It's a quick, kind way. It's not like drowning. Why don't you try it? Why don't you go?"
6. It will not take you long to figure out where this quote comes from:
"How do you feel, Georgie?" whispered Mrs Weasley. George's fingers groped for the side of his head. "Saint-like," he murmured. "What's wrong with him?" croaked Fred, looking terrified. "Is his mind affected?" "Saint-like," repeated George, opening his eyes and looking up at his brother. "You see... I'm holy. Holey, Fred, geddit?" Mrs Weasley sobbed harder than ever. Colour flooded Fred's pale face. "Pathetic," he told George. "Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humour before you, you go for holey?"
7. From which of Stephen King's works comes this excerpt?
"In February he starts looking at me funny, out of the corners of his eyes. I keep expecting him to yell at me or even whip out his old pocketknife and and carve on me. He hasn't done anything like that in a long time but I think it would almost be a relief. It wouldn't let the bad-gunky out of me because there isn't any - I saw the real bad-gunky when Paul was chained up in the cellar, not Daddy's fantasies of it - and there's nothing like that in me. But there's something bad in him, and cutting doesn't let it out. Not this time, although he's tried plenty. I know. I've seen the bloody shirts and underpants in the wash. In the trash, too. If cutting me would help him, I'd let him, because I still love him. More than ever since it's just the two of us. More than ever since what we went through with Paul. That kind of love is a kind of doom, like the bad-gunky. 'Bad-gunky's strong,' he said. But he won't cut."
8. Let's go back in time to another English classic. Where does this excerpt come from?
"I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed. The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fire-side, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, 'She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and child-like disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner - something lighter, franker, more natural as it were - she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy little children.' "
9. Following the "Da Vinci Code", many books have been written that are concerned with religious conspiracies. Here is an excerpt from one, but which one is it?
'There are thirty-six tzaddikim in each generation. You know perhaps that in Hebrew, each letter also has a numerical value? In Hebrew, thirty-six is expressed by the Hebrew characters lamad, which is like an English l and vav, which is equivalent to the letter v in English. Lamad is thirty and vav is six. In Yiddish, these [...] men are known as the lamadvavniks: the thirty-six just men who uphold the world.'
10. Thriller author Jeffery Deaver has published quite a number of books, and they all bear the same characteristics: a fast-paced plot with numerous unexpected twists and an unpredictable ending. The one this excerpt is from is no exception, and yet it is quite different from Deaver's other works. Which one is it?
"Paul's grandfather was proud of his country of ancestry, as was Paul's father, who insisted the children study German and speak their native language in the house. He recalled absurd moments when his mother would shout in Gaelic and his father in German when they fought. [...] 'How would it work? I'm not saying yes. I'm just curious. How would it work?' - 'There's a ship taking the Olympic team, families and press over to Germany. It leaves day after tomorrow. You'd be on it.' - 'The Olympic team?' - 'We've decided it's the best way. There'll be thousand of foreigners in town. Berlin'll be packed. Their army and police'll have their hands full.' - Avery said, 'You won't have anything to do with the Olympics officially - the games don't start till August first. The Olympic Committee only knows you're a writer.' [...] 'Think about it, Paul. We're giving you a chance to erase the past. Start all over again. What kind of button man gets that kind of deal?' "
Source: Author
PearlQ19
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agony before going online.
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