How did Burt and Grace bare (almost) all in 2015?
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ON YOUR MARKS
1.GOthat was SeT published,A Watchman somewhatis the controversially,title of a novelin July. Who was its author? 2. Who, in a 1939 novel, charged $25, plus expenses? 3. Whose first book, published in 1966, was entitled I Chose To Climb? 4.Emma Rouault is a beautiful young woman, convent-educated, who has a powerful yearning for luxury and romance, mainly imbibed from popular novels of the time. What is her married name? 5.In the works of P. G. Wodehouse, who or what are Wrench, Maple, Mulready, Oakshott, Purvis, Seppings, Waterbury and Butterfield, among many others? 6.Zabibah And The King (2000), The Fortified Castle (2001) and Men And The City (2002) are novels that sold well in Iraq, and not quite so well elsewhere. Who was their credited author? 7. Which unusual surname, with a slight difference in spelling, is shared by Bathsheba, the heroine of an 1874 novel (pictured below), and Katniss, the heroine of a 2008 novel and its sequels? 8. Mark Twain’s 1883 memoir Life On The Mississippi is believed to have been the first manuscript ever submitted to a publisher to have been what? 9.The film eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind took its title from a poem written in 1717 by whom? 10. Ian Fleming had a tendency to name characters after his school friends. Blofeld was one, named after the cricket commentator Henry Blofeld’s father. But did he name Scaramanga, the three-nippled villain of The Man With The Golden Gun, after his school friend George Scaramanga?
WHO WROTE WHAT?
HeRe’S this year’s batch of celebrity autobiographies, one or two of which will be clogging up the charity shops come January . . .
1. Call The Midlife
2. Spectacles
3. Over The Top And Back
4. Absolute Pandemonium
5. Open The Cage, Murphy!
6. Unscripted: My Ten Years In Telly
7. But enough About Me
8. Winner: My Racing Life
9. Reckless
10. I’ll never Write My Memoirs
BIZARRE ADJECTIVES
HeRe’S a selection of obscure words taken from the works of Burgess, Nabokov and other novelists who like you to keep a dictionary by your side. Match the adjective to its definition. (a) SCOMBROID (b) SCUMBeReD (c) SeLeNIAN (d) SILURID (e) SINISTRAL (f) SOLILOQUAL (g) SOMNILOQUeNT (h) STeATOPYGOUS (i) STeRTOROUS (j) SUDORIFeROUS 1. Talking to yourself 2. Talking in your sleep 3. Relating to the moon 4. Having the physical shape of a mackerel and, maybe, its predatory qualities 5. On the left side, unlucky, or just wrong 6. Snoring 7. Fouled with dog excrement 8. Sweaty, or something that makes you sweaty 9. Resembling catfish 10. Possessed of large or bulging buttocks
HP SAUCE
HeRe are ten lists of novels. each selection was written by someone who served as an MP. In each case, name the writer. 1. A Very British Coup (1982) 2.A Parliamentary Affair (1994), A Woman’s Place (1996), She’s Leaving Home (1997), The Ambassador (1999), Chasing Men (2000), This Honourable House (2001) 3. Career Girls (1995), Tall Poppies (1997), Venus envy (1998). 4.Vivian Grey (1826), Venetia (1837) 5.The Devil’s Tune (2003) 6. The Maker’s Mark (1991), In That Quiet Earth (1993), The Skylark’s Song (1994) 7. Prester John (1910), Greenmantle (1916), The Island Of Sheep (1919) 8. The Four Streets (2014) 9. The Clematis Tree (2000), An Act Of Treachery (2002), Father Figure (2005) 10.Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders (2007), Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death (2008)
FROM THE PAGES OF
THE DAILY MAIL
1. ACCORDInG to Daniel Smith’s How To Think Like Einstein, how large was Einstein’s brain compared to the average? (a) Larger (b) Average (c) Smaller 2.In January, Roger Lewis reviewed a book about the ‘secrets of the world’s happiest country’. He thought it sounded like hell on earth. Which country? (a) Denmark (b) Sweden (c) New Zealand 3. James Wallman’s book Stuffocation suggested we all have too much stuff. What’s the average number of unworn items in a UK woman’s wardrobe? (a) 2 (b) 12 (c) 22 4. Reviewed by Peter Lewis, Stranger Than Fiction was a biography of which author who, in four years in the Twenties, published 74 books — roughly one every three weeks? (a) Barbara Cartland (b) edgar Wallace (c) George Simenon 5. Brian Viner admired A Different Kind Of Weather in March, an ‘elegantly written memoir’ by which seventh and youngest son of an earl, descended from King James II? (a) Francis Maude (b) William Waldegrave (c) Nicholas Soames 6.According to Sean Smith’s bouncy biography, who didn’t like it at all when John Lennon called him a ‘Welsh poof’? (a) Richard Burton (b) Anthony Hopkins (c) Tom Jones 7. Roger Lewis enjoyed Peter Ackroyd’s ‘nutritious’ biography of Alfred Hitchcock in April, and discovered that what unlikely substance was used for the blood in Psycho? (a) Chocolate sauce (b) Gravy (c) Real blood 8. Kate Andersen Brower’s The Residence, all about the White House, beguiled Peter Lewis in April. Which U.S. President installed a bowling alley in the basement? (a) Lyndon Johnson (b) Richard Nixon (c) Ronald Reagan 9. In The Soul Of An Octopus, reviewed by Laura Freeman in May, naturalist Sy Montgomery revealed that octopuses have a taste for which seasonal vegetable? (a) Turnips (b) Parsnips (c) Brussels sprouts 10. Chris Taylor’s How Star Wars Conquered The Universe conquered our pages in May, and Roger Lewis with it. The original film’s writerdirector George Lucas, we discovered, had been bullied at school by a boy called what? (a) Gary Rex Vader (b) Gary Rex Yoda (c) Gary Rex Palpatine