Title Waves Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Ox-Bow Incident

"The Ox-Bow Incident" was made into a 1943 movie starring Henry Fonda and Henry/Harry Morgan (aka Colonel Potter), which depicts lives 'hanging in the balance' in a small Western town in 1885. A mob must decide between violence and justice after they catch the three 'rustlers' who supposedly killed a local man. Unfortunately, there is no justice for the men who decided to take the law into their own hands.
All of the other choices are Westerns too: "The Searchers" is a 1956 John Wayne vehicle; "High Noon" (1952) stars Gary Cooper; "Blazing Saddles" is a very funny Mel Brooks comedy.

Answer: Ode on a Grecian Urn

Keats (1795-1821) wrote five "Ode" poems with "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1819) as the first. In the poem he discusses the dichotomy between the frozen carved figures on a vase and the dynamic Greek life it portrays. "When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be" was written in 1818 and shows Keats' fears about mortality. "Ode to a Nightingale" was the second of his five 'great Odes', and discusses his own heartache vs. the beauty of the song of the nightingale, once again dealing with the theme of death. Keats poem "Endymion", also written in 1818, has the famous quote: "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever".

Answer: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Edward Albee is a three time Pulitzer Prize winner and recipient of three Tony Awards. He won the Pulitzer Prizes for "A Delicate Balance" (1966), "Seascape" (1972) and "Three Tall Women" (1994). In 1963 he won a Tony Award for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", which was subsequently made into a 1966 film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and directed by Mike Nichols. Set on a university campus, the play is about a middle-aged couple who wind up with two unexpected guests and proceed to play some bitter, soul-crushing 'games'; the line between reality and fantasy is constantly blurred. It was rejected for a Pulitzer because of its raw language and emotions.

Answer: Dashiell Hammett

In 1930 Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) wrote "The Maltese Falcon" about a detective who winds up with a secretive client and a case where his partner is killed. Everyone seems to be looking for a valuable bejeweled statue. Hammett created Sam Spade and Nick and Nora Charles. Collins (1824-1889) wrote "The Moonstone", generally considered to be the first detective novel in the English language. Ellery Queen is the name of the amateur detective in the stories, and the pseudonym for Frederic Dannay (aka Daniel Nathan) and Manfred Lee (aka Emmanuel Lepofsky). Rita Mae Brown co-authored, with her cat 'Sneaky Pie Brown', the mystery series about the feline 'Mrs. Murphy'.

Answer: John Green

John Green wrote his sixth novel about 16 year old cancer patient Hazel Grace Lancaster. He took the title from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" where Cassius says to Brutus "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves...". Hazel is forced by her parents to join a support group where she meets 17 year old amputee Augustus Waters.

It is a beautiful teenage love story. Green's debut novel, "Looking for Alaska", was published in 2005. In 2014 he appeared on "Time" magazine's list of one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Siegal's "Love Story" was from 1970; James' "50 Shades of Grey" was published in 2011, and Sparks' "The Notebook" came out in 1996.

Answer: Joan Rivers

Sadly, "Diary of a Mad Diva" was the last book Joan Rivers (1933-2014) wrote before she died of cardiac arrest. Joan (born Joan Alexandra Molinsky) was truly one of a kind: an actress, comedian, writer, producer, TV host. Her humor was acerbic and unafraid (sort of an intellectual Don Rickles); her death was a tragedy! The other humorists are: Nora Ephron (1941-2012) with "Crazy Salad" in 1975 and "I Remember Nothing" in 2010; Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) had weekly newspaper columns "At Wit's End"; Wanda Sykes is a stand-up comedian, actress ("The New Adventures of Old Christine") and author of 2009's "I'ma Be Me".

Answer: Dale Carnegie

The first self-help book (unless you count "The Bible") was written by Samuel Smiles in 1859 and, appropriately, called "Self-Help"; its advice was simply "Heaven helps those who help themselves". One of the earliest and most influential tomes was Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People", originally published in October 1936. Carnegie (1888-1955) linked success with self-confidence, and helped spawn the world's best-selling genre.

The other authors and their books include Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" (1989), Robbins' "Awaken the Giant Within" (1991), and Tracy's "Eat That Frog!" about procrastination (2012).

Answer: Gone Girl

"Gone Girl" was a novel published in October 2014, and told the fictional story of Nick and Amy Dunne, about a man accused of his wife's murder. Amy goes missing on the couple's fifth anniversary. Where is she? Flynn admitted that, although it was not based on 'real life', some of it was patterned after the case of Scott and Laci Peterson.

The novel was later turned into a 2014 movie starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. "Thriller" was written by the prolific author James Patterson in 2006; that same year, Stieg Larsson authored "The Girl Who Played with Fire"; Tana French's "In the Woods" was published in 2007.

Answer: The Stand

"The Stand" (1978) starts off with the accidental release of a 'weaponized' strain of the flu called 'Project Blue' and nicknamed 'Captain Trips'. Through a security malfunction, a soldier escapes the compound and triggers a world-wide pandemic which kills 99.4% of the human population.

The disease causes violence, grief and the breakdown of society. There are two groups of survivors, i.e., Randall Flagg's group (evil) in Las Vegas and Mother Abigail's group (good) in the 'Free Zone' in Colorado. Remarkably, Flagg survives to be seen as the antagonist in other works.

The novel was made into a TV mini-series in 1994. The wrong choices are also by Stephen King.

Answer: Shirley Jackson

The supernatural horror story "The Haunting of Hill House" was written by Shirley Jackson and published in 1959. This is a frightening tale of four people seeking evidence of a 'haunting' at the unwelcoming place called Hill House. At first they just experience some 'inexplicable phenomena', but soon...you'll just have to see for yourself. Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) had her first novel "The Road through the Wall" published in 1948; that same year "The New Yorker" published her short story "The Lottery", to almost universal criticism. "The Amityville Horror" was by Jay Anson (1977). "The Canterville Ghost" was by Oscar Wilde (1887), and "American Nightmares" by Dale Bailey.