What's On My Bookshelves? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Alison Weir

Alison Weir lives in Surrey, England, and is a New York Times bestselling author. Her titles include "Eleanor of Aquitaine", "Henry VIII: The King and His Court", "The Life of Elizabeth I", "The Children of Henry VIII", The Wars of the Roses", "The Princes in the Tower" and "The Six Wives of Henry VIII". Her first novel was "Innocent Traitor", about the life of Lady Jane Grey and her 2008 novel is "The Lady Elizabeth", an account of Elizabeth I's life before becoming Queen. These are the only two novels written by Weir.

Sharon Kay Penman wrote a series of novels set in 12th and 13th Century England and Wales. Phillipa Gregory is also a biographer of British royalty.

Answer: A Year with C. S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1989 and died in 1963 at the age of 65. Lewis was a multi-faceted person, being an academic, serving on the faculty of Oxford University; as well as a medievalist, essayist, literary critic and lay theologian. He was a member of the Church of England (Anglican) and served as a soldier in World War I. "The Chronicles of Narnia", written for children, influenced, among others, J. K. Rowlings' "Harry Potter" series. Upon converting to the Anglican faith in adulthood, after earlier having abandoned the church, he wrote many books on theology. He is known as a "Christian apologist".

All of the wrong answers are titles by Lewis.

Answer: Translation of the Gnostic Scriptures

The "Nag Hammadi Library" is a one-volume, English-language edition of the famous library of 4th Century manuscripts discovered in Egypt in 1945. Included in the works are the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Thomas and other sacred texts. Gnosticism is a syncretistic religious movement in antiquity teaching that humans are divine beings trapped in a material world created by an imperfect god.

The term derives from the Greek word, gnosis, meaning knowledge. Syncretistic, as used here, refers to the attempted reconciliation of opposing principles of religion.

Answer: The Da Vinci Code

This book started an amazing frenzy of renewal of interest in the Holy Grail phenomenon and the role of Mary Magdalene in the life of Jesus Christ. Scorned by traditional theologians, it espouses a theory that has been around for years, most controversial for the role of Mary Magdalene in Jesus' life.

"Angels & Demons", another Dan Brown thriller, predates "The Da Vinci Code" (without the hoopla) and also features Robert Langdon, Harvard symbologist, who becomes embroiled in a search for the Illuminati, a religious underground movement. Much of "The Da Vinci Code" is inspired by "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", a research work authored by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, which benefited by an enormous resurgence in sales after publication of Brown's book. "The Knights Templar Revealed" is one of a number of books delving into the mysterious Knights Templar of the Middle Ages.

Answer: Antonia Fraser

Antonia Fraser is a prolific biographer of European royalty. Her works include "Mary Queen of Scots", "The Warrior Queens", "The Wives of Henry VIII", "Love and Louise XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King" and "Marie Antoinette: The Journey". She lives in London with her husband. She is the recipient of literary awards such as the Wolfson Prize for History, the Saint Louis Literary Award and the 2000 Norton Medlicott Medal of Britain's Historical Association.

Phillipa Gregory is another British royal biographer and novelist, whose works include "The Other Boleyn Girl" (about Anne's sister, Mary), "The Boleyn Inheritance", "The Virgin's Lover" and "The Constant Princess". Agatha Christie, of course, is a renowned British author of mysteries, whose protagonists include Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. I made up Janet Abercrombie.

Answer: St. Francis of Assisi

"God's Fool: The Life and Times of Francis of Assisi", is authored by Julien Green and was originally published in French in 1983. St. Francis (1181-1226)was a 12th/13th Century friar who founded the Order of the Friars Minor, commonly known as Franciscans. St. Francis is the Patron Saint of animals.

He is also known for St. Francis' Prayer, which begins with the line "Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace. . .". His feast day is October 4.

Answer: Shelby Foote

Foote died in 2005, at the age of 89. He was born in 1916 in Greenville, Mississippi. He won world-wide recognition as a Civil War historian after appearing on Ken Burns' mini-series, "The Civil War", an award-winning production of PBS. He authored the three-volume work on the Civil War entitled "The Civil War: A Narrative".

In addition to his Civil War writings, he also wrote several fictional books, all set in Mississippi, including "Follow Me Down", an account of a 1941 murder in Greenville; "Jordan County", a Faulkner-like collection of short stories; and "September, September", the story of three white Southerners who kidnapped the eight-year old son of a wealthy African American.

The novelist William Faulkner, also born in Mississippi and Foote's literary hero, said of Foote: "[H]e shows promise, if he'll just stop trying to write Faulkner and will write some Shelby Foote".

Answer: The Man-Eaters of Tsavo

Col. Patterson was the British engineer in charge of the construction of a Kenya-Uganda Railway bridge over the Tsavo River. Located in Tsavo, a region of Kenya, the bridge was built in 1898. Tsavo means "place of slaughter", a reference to murderous attacks by the Masai tribe on local residents.

The legend of these attacks says that the dead bodies were eaten by lions, who thus acquired a taste for human flesh. This is believed to be the reason two lions repeatedly attacked the construction crew.

The lions were eventually killed by Col. Patterson. Their skins and skulls reside today in the Chicago Field Museum. "A Moveable Feast", by Ernest Hemingway, recounts the author's days in Paris in the 1920s. "Hunting with Hemingway" and "Hemingway in Africa" are biographical works about Ernest Hemingway, who was an avid hunter and spent much time in Africa.

Answer: Thomas Harris

The basis of several popular movies, including "Silence of the Lambs", "Red Dragon" and "Hannibal Rising", this series of books follows the deadly career of Dr. Hannibal Lecter and the hunt for him by the FBI. As of the end of the chronologically last book, "Hannibal", Dr. Lecter remains free, suggesting yet another sequel? "Red Dragon" is about an earlier Dr. Lecter and "Hannibal Rising" tells the story of Dr. Lecter's childhood and early manhood.

Dan Brown wrote "The Da Vinci Code"; Jack Crawford is the FBI agent in charge of capturing Lecter. I made up Jonathan Harris.

Answer: Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy's monumental novel, published in 1869, is one of the great literary classics. It has a host of characters and multiple themes, including history, the human condition and societal themes. The original was in Russian with a considerable amount of French dialogue. Much of the French dialogue is preserved in English translations. Tolstoy also wrote "Anna Karenina", published in 1878. Tolstoy was born in 1828 in Yasnaya, Polyana in the Russian Empire and died in 1910 at the age of 82.

Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Pasternak are also Russian novelists.