In keeping with the theme of this issue, this week’s quiz is on fiction.
1 John Gardner, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson have all written novels featuring which fictional character?
2 From July 23, 2000, what change was made to The New York Times Book Review bestseller list? The time period should give enough hints.
3 This sounds a bit strange but can definitely be worked out. Who was the last American citizen whose life was the subject of an Amar Chitra Katha comic?
4 What connects these Arthur Conan Doyle stories — “The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier” and “The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane?”
5 These fictional characters do not know their names, their parents apparently know but demand a bribe to tell them, which they refuse to pay. You can always see six of them clearly, but the seventh’s shirtfront is always obscured.
6 His real name was Mahesh Das. He wrote under the pen name ‘Brahma’ and a collection of his poems are preserved in Bharatpur Museum. Who is this writer whose stories are the staple of Indian television?
7 The narrator, who claims throughout the story that he is sane, stalks his victim for over a week waiting for the perfect moment to strike. After he smothers his victim and dismembers the carcass, the police arrive to investigate a noise a neighbour heard. Name this story where the narrator confesses his crime after hearing a faint noise from where the body was hidden?
8 Which onerous responsibility connects George Cyril Wellbeloved, Pirbright, Edwin Pott, Monica Simmons and Cuthbert Price?
9 William Brodie was a highly respected tradesman and Deacon of the trades guild. Because his job entailed fitting locks to doors and cabinets, he was able to carry out burglaries undetected for many years. Name the classic story based on his life?
10 This is the dedication for which work of fiction? “My dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realised that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather?”
Answers
1. They all have written novels featuring James Bond
2. They started a separate bestseller list for children’s books. It was largely to make sure that the Harry Potter novels did not dominate all book lists as they had been doing for the past 12 months
3. Astronaut Kalpana Chawla
4. They are the only stories in the canon to be narrated by Sherlock Holmes
5. The Beagle Boys, the serial villains in the Donald Duck comics
6. Akbar’s courtier Birbal
7. Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’
8. They are all keepers of the Empress of Blandings, Lord Emsworth’s beloved and prize-winning pig in the novels of PG Wodehouse
9. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
10. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the first of CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia
Joy Bhattacharjyais a quizmaster and Project Director, FIFA U-17 World Cup
Follow Joy on Twitter @joybhattacharj