Book Titles : Quiz Answers

Book Titles

Quiz: The Answers

1. This classic book from 1962 takes its title from the poem, in four cantos, that appears at the beginning.
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

2. A young killer gives himself away by later mentioning to a surviving, but crippled, victim the name of a manuscript on the desk at the time of the killings. This manuscript gives its odd name to the book. In the film version the killer reveals himself by singing a Gene Kelly song.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

3. This title takes its name from the meat cellar where the protagonist is sent. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut Jr

4. Transgressive writer who unravels the psyches of his young, gay characters had a cult hit with this title last year.
My Loose Thread by Dennis Cooper

5. Coming from a prolific American author, who won an award for the novel, this one-word title consists of an object pronoun.
Them by Joyce Carol Oates

Doubling Up:

6. Odd traveling companions – one American, one British - gave similar titles to their books. A clue to the two titles: find the authors’ surnames: the American shares part of his with the last part of a monster maker; the Brit - colorful, envious rookie?

American title: Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck

British title: Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene

7. Bad day for thousands of possibly very flummoxed sci-fi fans who thought they were buying the book of the awful flag-waving film.
Independence Day by Richard Ford

8. The title a contemporary Scottish writer gave her book harks back to an autobiography set in Africa and from there to a song by Andy Williams from the film of the same name.
Born Free by Laura Hird

9. These novels carry the same title and came out nearly the same year, but her book was about serial killers, started off in London and ended up in New Orleans, while his book was set in London, Paris and Munich in the 40s and 50s and dealt with the ‘obsessive quest for a vanishing woman’. Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite and Robert Irwin

10. This Scottish, not Welsh, author must have been a little miffed when the title he chose for his third novel was the same as a hit U.S. TV show, a ‘family’ drama set in New Jersey, which had just arrived in the UK to much media attention thanks to its violent nature and colorful language. Name the title. The Sopranos by Alan Warner

Sun and Moon Titles
Here you’ll find ‘Sun’ . . .
sunni.jpg (4674 bytes)

11. Also a fiesta? The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway

12. You won’t find sex with car wreck victims in this WWII semi-autobiography set in the Far East. Empire of the Sun by J.G Ballard

13. The second in critically acclaimed sci-fi detective series co-starring the android R. Daneel Olivaw. The Naked Sun by Issac Asimov

14. "Undoubtedly much too good to win the Booker prize" was one comment for this book that should really come with a piece of smoked glass for those stupid enough to literally follow the title.
Staring at the Sun by Julian Barnes

. . . and here you’ll find ‘Moon’

15. A sprightly author won the Booker with this title.
Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

16. A diamond, which gives the book its title, is stolen. Regarded as the first detective novel. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

17. Collection of this author’s early (30s and 40s) moon related sci-fi stories. Did it give David Bowie an idea for a song title?
The Man Who Sold The Moon by Robert Heinlein

18. Inspired by the seedier side of Paul Gauguin, this title also mentions an obsolete British coin. The Moon and Sixpence by Somerset Maugham

Forget the title?

A person enters your bookstore and seems to know a little about the book they are after but not the title. Can you help?

19. Everybody was talking about it a couple years ago; there’s this scene where a guy hallucinates about an escaped turd?
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

20. Oh… the commie one about Napoleon and pigs…
Animal Farm by George Orwell

21. The one that has a really gross, obnoxious hero. Title sounds like something to do with the American Civil War. Young author, killed himself ‘cause no one would publish it. Does that help?
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

22. ..um… ‘M’? ‘L’? It’s a letter of the alphabet by that real reclusive guy… V by Thomas Pynchon

23. . . . there’s this Indian, a bunch of nuts and Rat Shit? One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

24. You know, the one that came out recently about the little kid in a lifeboat with a tiger...
Life of Pi by Yann Martel

25. It’s a collection of stories that came out last year is all I know. The Barcelona Review published a story from it called “The Beginnings of Grief.” Really brill. You Are Not A Stranger Here by Adam Haslett

© tbr 2003

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