Read Any Good Books Lately? Here are a Few... Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Young Celie has known nothing but misery. Violated by the man she believes to be her father, cruelly separated from her beloved sister, and forced to marry a man who abuses and mistreats her, will Celie survive and overcome her terrible circumstances? The book is "The Color Purple"; who wrote it?

Answer: Alice Walker

Alice Walker was born in Georgia in 1944. She attended Spelman College in Atlanta, and went on to graduate from Sarah Lawrence University. Walker married political activist Mel Leventhal in 1967; the marriage lasted nine years, and they had one daughter. Walker and Levanthal spent some time living in Mississippi and working in the civil rights movement. "The Color Purple" won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983.

The book is written in the form of letters written to Celie's sister and to God.

It was made into a film in 1985, starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, and Oprah Winfrey.

2. This novel stirred up quite a controversy when it was published in 1955. Humbert Humbert, a man in his late thirties, falls passionately in love with a very young girl. The book was written by Vladimir Nabokov; what's the title?

Answer: Lolita

Nabokov had trouble finding a publisher for his book, as the subject matter was so controversial. The book's heroine, Lolita, was twelve years old when Humbert first saw her and became immediately obsessed with her. Many people were troubled by the book's theme.

But the critical reception was so favorable, the author's writing so brilliant, that it was accepted and became a best-seller. "Lolita" has become one of the most admired and critically praised novels of the 20th century. Vladimir Nabokov was born in 1899 in St. Petersburg, Russia, the son of an important politician.

When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, his father was thrown into prison, and the family went into exile in Europe. In 1922, young Vladimir's father was murdered as he attempted to defend a political opponent from an assassin. Nabokov began his writing career in Europe, and eventually he came to the United States, where he lectured and taught at various universities.

He published many distinguished novels including the three listed as incorrect options, critical works and translations, and his wonderful autobiography "Speak, Memory" in 1967.

He was also a noted lepidopterist. He died in Montreux, Switzerland on July 2, 1977.

3. During World War II, on the island of Pianosa, near Italy, a bombardier named Yossarian wants only to stay alive and go home. He's eligible to return home from the war, having flown the required number of missions, but he's caught up in red tape, in a bureaucratic nightmare called "Catch-22". Who wrote this novel?

Answer: Joseph Heller

Heller was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1923. After graduating from high school, he joined the Air Force in 1941. He served as a B-25 bombardier, flying 60 missions. After the war, he resumed his education, receiving his masters degree from Columbia University, and then went on the Oxford University as a Fulbright scholar.
He became a teacher at several universities, then worked as a copywriter for Time magazine. He published several popular novels after "Catch-22". Heller died on December 13, 1999.
The other three writers mentioned also wrote great novels about World War II, after serving in that war themselves.

4. He created the fictional place known as Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, home to Compsons and Snopes and Sutpens. Several books tell their story: "Light in August", "The Sound and the Fury", "As I Lay Dying" and "Absalom, Absalom!". He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. Name this celebrated author.

Answer: William Faulkner

William Faulkner was born in 1897 in Mississippi. Like many of the best writers of his generation, he was mostly self-educated. He was a voracious reader all his life. Faulkner was famous for his intricate prose, and page-long sentences, the opposite of the spare style used by many writers of his period.

He used many new literary methods, such as stream of consciousness and stories told from different points of view. He was a child of the South, well aware of the intricate relationships between the races. With his knowledge of the Southern character, he was able to portray people as so much more complicated and intelligent than is often seen in literature about the South. "Light in August" was published in 1932, "The Sound and the Fury" in 1929, "As I Lay Dying" in 1930 and "Absalom, Absalom!" in 1936.

5. Malcolm Lowry was the author of this highly regarded novel, the tale of a man bent on drinking himself to death. He is the ex-British Consul in Mexico; his estranged wife has just arrived there to try to salvage their marriage. The story transpires over a day in 1938 - the Day of the Dead, an important Mexican holiday. Name Malcolm Lowry's book.

Answer: Under the Volcano

"Under the Volcano" was published in 1947 and is said to be semi-autobiographical. In 1998 it was rated number 11 on the list of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century compiled by the Modern Library.
Malcolm Lowry was born in England. After he graduated from Cambridge in 1931, he would devote himself to the two things he loved most - literature and alcohol. Lowry lived for a time in London, hanging out on the edges of the London literary scene. He led a turbulent romantic life; he was married twice. He lived and wrote in Mexico and in British Colombia, Canada. He was plagued by alcoholism all his adult life.
Lowry died in England, probably in good part due to his drinking.
"Under the Volcano" was made into an excellent film, starring Albert Finney as the Consul, in a brilliant performance. Jacqueline Bisset and Anthony Andrews also starred in the movie, which was filmed in Mexico. The celebrated Mexican director Emilio Fernandez had a role in the film as well.

6. Tom Joad is just out of prison, and finds his childhood home deserted, his family planning to head west to find work. It's the time of the Great Depression in the United States, and along with many other families whose crops have been destroyed in the Dust Bowl, they make the trek from Oklahoma to California. "The Grapes of Wrath" is their story - who wrote the book?

Answer: John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck was born in California in 1902. He is considered to have been a master of fiction that examines the lives of the poor during the Great Depression, and is one of the best known and widely read American writers of the last century. A winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, he is best known for "Of Mice and Men" (1937) and his Pulitzer Prize-winner "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940).

His books drew their themes from events such as the Great Depression and the migration west in the early part of the 20th century. Many of his novels, including "Cannery Row" (1945) and "The Grapes of Wrath", were made into Hollywood movies, and Steinbeck himself was to achieve some success as a screenwriter.

He died on December 20, 1968.

7. "Native Son" tells the story of Bigger Thomas, a young African-American living in desperate poverty in 1930s Chicago. He takes a job as a chauffeur with a rich family, and soon a terrible incident occurs in which a young woman is killed. This novel, published in 1940, became an immediate best-seller, and made the author world-famous. Name the man who wrote "Native Son".

Answer: Richard Wright

Richard Wright was born in 1908, the son of a sharecropper. After a difficult childhood and adolescence, Wright began his career as a writer. "Native Son" was published in 1940, to critical acclaim. It was chosen as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, the first book by an African-American ever to be recommended.

He continued to write, publishing his autobiographical book "Black Boy" in 1945, in which he describes his early life, his problems with his Seventh-day Adventist family, and his struggles with white society.

He went on to become involved with the Communist Party, which would result in his blacklisting by the Hollywood movie studios during the McCarthy era. Wright became seriously ill while visiting Africa in 1957, and his health deteriorated over the next few years.

He died of a heart attack in Paris at the young age of 52, and is buried there in Le P�re Lachaise Cemetery.

8. In 1993, this author received the Nobel Prize for Literature for her collected works. Among the titles: "Beloved", "Song of Solomon", "The Bluest Eye", "Tar Baby". She is one of the most respected writers in the world of literature - name the author.

Answer: Toni Morrison

Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford on 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, the second of four children. She read constantly as a child, and her father often told her folk stories of the black experience, which would later show up in her novels.
Morrison attended Howard University, and while there began using the name "Toni". She received degrees in English from Howard and Cornell University. Morrison began to write while teaching at Howard. After a time, her novels began to attract a readership. She wrote of the black experience and the suffering of black women in particular.
She is one of the foremost writers in literature today. In addition to the Nobel Prize, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for "Beloved" (1987), the story of a fugitive slave who murdered her own child rather than see her returned to slavery. Song of Solomon" was published in 1977, "The Bluest Eye" in 1970, and "Tar Baby" in 1981.

9. This classic won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 and is the writer's first published novel. The tale is told from the point of view of the young daughter of Alabama lawyer Atticus Finch. Atticus agrees to defend a young black man accused of raping a white woman. This was not a popular move in the Deep South around the time of the Great Depression, when the story takes place. The book is titled "To Kill a Mockingbird". Who was the author?

Answer: Harper Lee

Nelle Harper Lee was born in Alabama in 1926, the youngest of four children. After graduating from high school, she studied law at the University of Alabama for a time, then moved on to study at Oxford in England. She eventually moved to New York, signed on with an agent, and began to write.

She finished "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 1959, and it was published in 1960. The book was an immediate bestseller and critical success, and she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. It is still a bestseller and an all-time favorite novel in the annals of American literature. Except for a few brief essays, she did not publish anything since her first novel until 2015, when "Go Set a Watchman" (written before "To Kill a Mockingbird", and featuring an adult Scout returning to Maycomb) was released.

10. This novel tells of several days in the life of a rather confused young man who has been expelled from his boarding school, Pencey Prep, and decides to run away just before he's scheduled to go home. He spends a few eventful days in New York City, among the "phonies". The author of the novel is J.D. Salinger, and the book is "The Catcher in the Rye". What is the young man's name?

Answer: Holden Caulfield

"The Catcher in the Rye" is one of the most "challenged" books in the history of American literature. Despite that, the book has probably been read by more young people than any other. Jerome David Salinger was born in 1919, and died in 2010. He attended school at a military academy, then went on to college at several universities, where he finally became interested in writing. Salinger was drafted into the Army Infantry in 1942, and saw combat in some of the most terrible battles of World War II, including the landing on Utah Beach on D-Day and the fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.

After the war he began to write for the "New Yorker" magazine, and one of his short stories eventually became "The Catcher in the Rye". He's best known for that novel, published in 1951. Salinger published "Franny and Zooey" in 1961, and "Raise High the Roof-Beam, Carpenters" and "Seymour: An Introduction" in 1963. Salinger is notorious for his reclusive nature.

He didn't give an interview or make a public appearance after the 1970s.

He didn't published any new work after 1965.

Source: Author robbieh

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor agony before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

This quiz is about some of the greatest novels written during the past century. The titles were taken from The Modern Library's "Best 100 Novels" list. How many of these classics have you read?

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