Non-Fiction Books of the 1990s Quiz

Answer: Angela's Ashes

"Angela's Ashes" chronicles a childhood filled with a father's alcoholism, premature deaths of children, poverty, deplorable living conditions, and near starvation. Yet Angela, the mother, strives through it all, and provides the one stabilizing force in the family. The family lives in a hovel next to public latrines. The father spends his wages on drink. They are at the mercy of the welfare system for even meager subsistence. For instance, the family believes that welfare will provide them a holiday ham but it turns out to be the head of a hog from which they must scrape tiny fragments of meat.

McCourt followed up "Angela's Ashes" by telling his life as a teacher in New York City with "'Tis"(2000) and "Teacher Man"(2005). Angela, McCourt's mother, always claimed that her son exaggerated.

Answer: Venus

"Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" contends that men from Mars hooked up with women from Venus and settled down on Earth. Only then did they realize that they were different.

Martians need trust, acceptance, appreciation, admiration, approval, and encouragement. Venusians need caring, understanding, respect, devotion, validation and reassurance.

In times of crisis, Martians tend to want to be alone, perhaps in a man cave; Venusians want to talk about it.

Martians idealize fairness. Venusians idealize unconditional love.

Answer: Political commentator

As a conservative political commentator, in 1977 Will won the Pulitzer Prize. But that did not deter him from his lifelong love of baseball. Eleven major league teams granted him locker room privileges so he could interview players for his research. In the end he chose four people that he felt gave the best description of their craft: Tony Gwynn on hitting, Cal Ripken on fielding, Orel Hershiser on pitching, and Tony La Russa on managing.

Answer: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

The central event of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" is the killing of Danny Hansford, a homosexual male prostitute, by antiques dealer Jim Williams. But the real heart of the book is its focus on the city of Savannah, Georgia, and the people of who resided there in the 1980s. A few of these include a man who is paid to walk a dead dog; a drag queen who calls 'herself' Lady Chablis; a piano player with a thousand songs memorized; and a lawyer who lives in other people's houses when they are on vacation. The title comes from William's efforts to avoid persecution by hiring a voodoo practitioner to intercede for him.

The book is so wide-ranging it was difficult to film, even for Clint Eastwood. He combined characters, hired excellent actors, and tried to use real sites but the film fell a little short, for those who knew the book.

My wife and I had both read the book and, on our drive to Savannah, borrowed the audio from the library to refresh our memories. As a consequence, we were able to visit many of the sites mentioned in the book. At a local nightclub we saw Emma Kelly, the lady of a thousand songs, and she signed our copy of the book. Lady Chablis, we found, was out of town. I still have my Bird Girl t-shirt that is depicted on the cover of the book. According to an Internet site, a first edition of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" could fetch $200.

Answer: Howard Stern

Stern meets all the qualifications for a shock jock. Surprisingly, "Private Parts" was a good read, and Stern had audacity to play himself in the film adaptation, that turned out to also be well received. Stern has been hit by several FCC fines for obscenity that drove him to subscription radio. The sad part is that the heroine of "Private Parts", Allison his wife, divorced him in 2001.

Answer: You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again

Julia Phillips was a producer of three of the most popular films of all time: "Taxi Driver", "The Sting", and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". When she was asked if she had any regrets about the book that attacked so many people she said: "I wasn't a pariah because I was a drug-addicted, alcoholic, rotten person and not a good mother. I was a pariah because I hit them with a harsh, fluorescent light and rendered them as contemptible as they truly are." One Hollywood notable said he was first offended by the book but realized the true situation was really worse.

Stephen Spielberg, director of "Close Encounters", blamed Phillips for cost overruns, along with her outbursts on the set, and banned her from the filming due to her cocaine addition. Her book was over a thousand pages long, in what might be called a stream of consciousness style, that editors reduced to less than 600 pages. She died of cancer in 2002 and her book was reissued.

Answer: The Way Things Ought to Be

Limbaugh has always seemed more of an entertainer than a political commentator to me. "The Way Things Ought to Be" spent 14 weeks atop the New York times best seller list. His loyal fans call themselves 'dittoheads', and have stuck by him through drug addiction, his hearing loss, and four wives. His program remains one of the popular on radio. For instance, Kenneth Starr was blamed for the prolonged investigation of Bill Clinton, but Limbaugh was beating that same drum five days a week on his radio show.

In recent years Limbaugh has turned his attention to writing children's books promoting a conservative political view of history. That scares me a little. But if Rush confuses you, check out "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot" by Senator Al Franken.

Answer: Book of Virtues

"Book of Virtues" is an 845 page collection of short stories, essays, and instructions to enable the child to be responsible, brave, compassionate, honest, friendly, persistent, and faithful. It became an instant success, as has spawned a host of similar efforts in literature and public media. Many of the tales have been adapted to television and can be found on Youtube.

Upon leaving politics, Bennett co-founded K12, a publicly-traded online education company. He is given credit for making moral responsibility a part of the political debate. It was revealed that Bennett had a gambling addiction and lost eight million dollars over a period of years.

Answer: Tom Brokaw

Brokaw was a familiar face as he anchored NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. In 1998 he published "The Greatest Generation", in which he paid homage to the generation that had most affected his life, beliefs, and adoration. Progress, whether it came in public service, politics, medicine, scientific research, journalism, or other fields, affected the lives of many people and transformed America. Brokaw sums it up by saying "no block of marble or elaborate edifice can equal their lives of sacrifice and achievement, duty and honor".

Answer: The Perfect Storm

The nautical term 'perfect storm' can be referenced back to 1718. The term has been defined as warm air from a low-pressure system coming from one direction,
a flow of cool and dry air generated by a high-pressure from another direction, and moisture carried by high winds.

Junger tried to recreate the actions on the Andrea Gale, as there were no survivors, but many of the families of the crew were interviewed. The film was an adaptation of the book and events, and some of the families were upset by the way in which their family member was portrayed, particularly in the film, but the court rejected their suits.