How much do you know about B Authors? | Quiz

Answer: Jim Butcher

Commencing his "Dresden Files" series in the 2000s, Jim Butcher is known for urban sci-fi novels starring wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden who, living in Chicago, thwarts all sorts of evil behind the scenes of real life. Butcher has also written a handful of other series including the six-book fantasy series "Codex Alera" and the technopunk sci-fi "Cinder Spires" series.

Answer: Dan Brown

Dan Brown is perhaps best known for "The Da Vinci Code" (released in 2003) which quickly jetted to the top of the bestseller lists worldwide and picked up a movie deal starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard. Although Brown's codebreaking-themed series starring Robert Langdon contains some of the most famous books of the 2000s and 2010s, he also wrote a couple of stand-alone novels before he found fame with stolen art and cryptexes-- specifically "Deception Point" and "Digital Fortress", both of which had technology at their core.

Answer: Judy Blume

Although New Jersey author Judy Blume made a name for herself with young adult and teen fiction in the 1970s and 1980s, she has also taken rare steps into adult fiction. That said, books like "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret." and "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" were ultimately very popular, with the former being noteworthy for tackling topics that many found uncomfortable to discuss with children, notably religion and puberty. Of course, this has led her to be a target for censorship in the past.

Answer: Clive Barker

A touchstone in the horror genre, Clive Barker's earliest works and short stories have often been seen as inspiration for others seeking to write or film graphic horror; his novella "The Hellbound Heart" became the basis for the film "Hellraiser" which he wrote in the 1980s.

Although many of his earlier works were distinctly horror, many of his later novels and teen books shifted into the fantasy genre, with his "Ararat" series notably taking on a lighter tone. Barker also illustrated the entirety of his "Ararat" books with hundreds of paintings.

Answer: Johanna Basford

While not too famous in the literary world, Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford topped bookselling charts in the 2010s when she led and rode the wave of therapeutic colouring books (starting with "Secret Garden" and "Enchanted Forest") selling over twenty million copies at the peak of the trend.

While she continued releasing colouring books after the wave struck, she also took on commercial ventures, developing art for several international brands.

Answer: Terry Brooks

Although Terry Brooks' works in the fantasy genre are nearly unparalleled and his works may require a bit of devotion to dive into, he's written dozens of best-sellers, many of which have been set in his long-running "Shannara" series of which there are nearly a dozen sub-series.

His books were eventually developed as a TV series, "The Shannara Chronicles", which aired on MTV and Spike in the United States for a couple of years. He also wrote novelizations of the films "Hook" and "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace".

Answer: Bill Bryson

Notably witty in his non-fiction works, Bill Bryson's books tend to split into one of two camps-- the personal experience travelogues (for which he's traveled around Europe, through his home country of the UK and through Australia and the U.S. a couple times each) or the non-fiction deep-dive (as he did with "A Short History of Nearly Everything", "Shakespeare: The World as Stage", and "At Home: A Short History of Private Life").

His contributions to British literature have led him to becoming an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2006.

Answer: Charles Bukowski

Although Bukowski wrote much more in short fiction, his literature is characterized by a down-and-dirty, lower class feel that gets into the nitty-gritty of West Coast American life. As such, he's become somewhat of a cult author famous for pulpy fiction, not unlike Chuck Palahniuk became in the 2000s. Bukowski also wrote a number of films and appeared on several recorded poetry readings.

He passed away in 1994 shortly before finishing his final novel, "Pulp", which was released anyways.

Answer: Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce wrote quite a bit in his day, mostly in the forms of poetry and short stories, but most of it was published after his disappearance in 1923. You heard me right. Bierce, whose horror fiction ended up being one of the many points of entry for readers, headed to Mexico and got caught up in the revolution.

He was never heard from again. His original works continued to find publishing nearly a hundred years later.

Answer: Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote much of his work in the first half of the twentieth century and was the man behind Tarzan and several works of fantasy/sci-fi set on Mars and Venus. He was so influential in some of these writings that he set some of the stage for space exploration throughout the century.

He died in 1950 having earned a lot of money off his "Tarzan" movies, retaining royalties all through Johnny Weissmuller's era.