Big Fish, Little Fish Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Catcher in the Rye

In the story, Holden Caulfield is rather obsessed about knowing where the ducks go when the lake in Central Park freezes during winter. He asks a surly cab driver, Horwitz, about it and Horwitz starts ranting about fish and how they stay in the lake even though it's frozen over.

When Holden questions how the fish ignore the ice, Horwitz yells that the fish "get frozen right in one position for the whole winter". It's their nature!

Answer: Cannery Row

More a collection of characters and episodes than a story, Cannery Row was the location that tied the characters together. It was a series of sardine canneries located on the shores of Monterey Bay, California. The canneries themselves do not have much to do with the story except provide atmosphere, but one of the main characters, Doc, is a collector of aquatic creatures for his Western Biological Laboratory. Doc was based on Steinbeck's friend, Ed Ricketts, who was a marine biologist who operated a biological supply house called Pacific Biological Laboratories.

Answer: Japanese

As with most of Rankin's books, the plot runs "from the sublime to the ridiculous", and the book has been described as "a steampunk sequel to 'War of the Worlds'". The story follows Professor Coffin's quest to find the title character for a sideshow exhibit. It was first published in 2010 and was followed by "The Mechanical Messiah" in 2011.

Answer: The Adventures of Pinocchio

Carlo Collodi's "The Adventures of Pinocchio", published in 1883, told the story of a wooden puppet who comes to life and whose nose grows longer when he gets into mischief or generally acts impudently. The Terrible Dogfish swallows Pinocchio whole when Pinocchio flees into the sea to escape from being turned back into a donkey, after just having been returned to normal.

In the book, this creature is more shark-like, whereas in the Disney film adaptation, it resembles a sperm whale and is given the name Monstro.

Answer: Walden

Henry David Thoreau wrote "Walden" about his time spent living in a small cabin near Walden Pond in Massachusetts. In the chapter "The Ponds", Thoreau talks about the tranquility and meditative properties of sitting quietly in a boat in the moonlight and not just catching fish but something more spiritual: "Thus I caught two fishes as it were with one hook".

In the chapter "Higher Laws", written after Thoreau had left Walden, he criticized fishing: "I have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect".

He maintains that men "with seeds of a better life" in them will grow up and leave "the gun and fish-pole behind".

Answer: Brother Fish

First published in 2007, the story covers around eighty years, and travels over four continents in telling the story of former Korean War soldiers, one of them being an Australian fisherman. Courtenay also wrote the moving biography "April Fool's Day", telling the story of his son, a hemophiliac who died after contracting HIV via a blood transfusion.

Answer: Bananafish

"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" was first published in "The New Yorker" magazine and later appeared in J. D. Salinger's "Nine Stories", a 1953 collection of his short stories. A sad tale of isolation, the story is about the last day of Seymour Glass, a war veteran suffering from mental illness.

While at the beach, Seymour tells a young girl the story of bananafish, a mythical type of fish that swim into holes, gorge themselves on bananas and then can't escape, thus dying of banana fever. The tragic life of the bananafish mirrors that of Seymour, who also dies at the end of the story.

Answer: Summer Lightning

Beloved of fans all over the world, the "Blandings" novels were published between 1915 and 1977, and have never been out of print. "Summer Lightning", originally published as "Fish Preferred" in the U.S., is a comedy of manners featuring an assortment of characters connected by a tangle of relationships, not to mention pig thievery. Wodehouse is also known for his "Psmith" and "Jeeves and Wooster" stories.

Answer: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

In the classic novel by Douglas Adams, the Babel Fish is capable of instantly translating one language into another. The Babel Fish is inserted into the ear and can allow the host to understand anything that is said to them by translating the incoming brainwaves and redirecting them to the host's brain's speech centre.

The novel's protagonist, Arthur Dent, had one inserted into his ear so that he could understand Vogon poetry. A popular online translation website takes its name from this creature.

Answer: Helen Dunmore

The first book of the series, "Ingo" was first published in 2005. At first Sapphire and Conor don't even know that they are half-mer (half-fish, half-human), they just know that they are powerfully drawn to the sea. Their mother begs them to stay away from it, and their father is missing presumed drowned, but they go anyway and eventually discover the other side of their heritage, under the sea.