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IAN RANKIN ASKS: The film A Haunting in Venice was released this year, with Kenneth Branagh reprising the role of Hercule Poirot. But what was the original title of the Agatha Christie novel on which it is very loosely based?
A Haunting in Sussex
The Witching Hour
Hallowe’en Party
Poirot’s Ghosts
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Nick de Semlyen’s nonfiction account of Hollywood’s action stars of the 1980s and 90s is called:
The Last Action Heroes
California Diehards
Maximum Carnage
Fists of Fury
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Mary and Bryan Talbot released a graphic novel this year titled Armed With Madness. It was the biography of which 20th-century artist? A: B: C: D:
Dorothea Tanning
Bridget Riley
Paula Rego
Leonora Carrington
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NAOMI ALDERMAN ASKS: Which of these is not a recent fictional technology CEO?
Rhett Daniels
Lenk Sketlish
Monroe Player
Robert Lemoine
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In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Perdix, Philomela and Tereus are turned into what, respectively?
A hoopoe, a partridge, an alligator
A partridge, a nightingale, a hoopoe
A swan, a nightingale, a raven
An alligator, a hoopoe, a raven
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Which of these literary pieces of clothing could you put on without risk to yourself?
Nessus’s shirt
The archchancellor’s hat
Karen’s red shoes
Katniss’s fire dress
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VAL MCDERMID ASKS: What was the title of Jane Austen’s first novel?
Pride and Prejudice
The Watsons
Sense and Sensibility
Lady Susan
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What was the first title to feature Richard Osman as a sole writer?
The Very Pointless Quiz Book
The World Cup of Everything
The Thursday Murder Club
Richard Osman’s House of Games
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Who was the first writer to continue the James Bond franchise after the death of Ian Fleming?
Sebastian Faulks
John Gardner
Kingsley Amis
Charlie Higson
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NINA STIBBE ASKS: Which mountains feature in My Side of the Mountain (1959) by Jean Craighead George?
Appalachian
Rockies
Blue Ridge
Catskills
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In Gerald Durrell’s The Talking Parcel (1974) the parcel contains a live parrot and what other creature?
A tiny golden spider
A multicoloured beetle
An adjectival ant
Another parrot
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In Anne of Green Gables (1908) by LM Montgomery, what name did Anne give to the apple-scented geranium she saw on a windowsill?
Jodie
Bonny
Flora
Frank
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BERNARDINE EVARISTO ASKS: Which of these award-winning novelists started writing her first novel on her mobile phone?
Ayòbámi Adébáyò
Irenosen Okojie
Akwaeke Emezi
Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
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Which Jamaican writer moved to Britain in 1932 and two years later her first play At What a Price was staged in London’s Scala theatre? In 1942 she founded the groundbreaking Caribbean Voices programme for the BBC.
Claudia Jones
Noni Jabavu
Una Marson
Phyllis Wheatley
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The lines “no one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark” come from a poem called Home by which poet?
Kwame Dawes
Mary Jean Chan
Warsan Shire
Walt Whitman
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WILLIAM BOYD ASKS: What was Franz Kafka’s day job?
Chartered accountant
Insurance assessor
Quantity surveyor
Discount stockbroker
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Which poet collaborated with Louis MacNeice on the 1937 travel book Letters from Iceland?
Cecil Day-Lewis
Edward Upward
Stephen Spender
WH Auden
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To which Scottish private school did Ian Fleming send the young James Bond after he was expelled from Eton?
Fettes College
Strathallan School
Glenalmond College
Dollar Academy
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ANNE ENRIGHT ASKS: In Elaine Feeney’s Booker-longlisted How to Build a Boat, Tadhg makes the skin of his traditional currach using:
Brown paper
Animal hide
Canvas
Butter
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According to Dublin by Chris Morash, John Ryan bought Dublin’s literary pub The Bailey on impulse at auction – he had intended to buy:
A toaster
A first edition of Ulysses
Flann O’Brien’s manuscript of The Third Policeman
A house in Inchicore
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When Bill Furlong, in Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, finds a girl locked in the convent coal house, the nuns feign surprise and feed her a breakfast of:
Slops
Soda bread and butter
A duck egg, black pudding and toast with margarine
Porridge with a dash of poitín
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JONATHAN COE ASKS: Which of these landmark events in British postwar culture did not take place on 5 October?
Publication of Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
The release of the first James Bond film, Dr No
The release of the first Beatles single, Love Me Do
The broadcast of the first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus
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Which of these experimental novels is structured like a crossword puzzle and can be read either “across” or “down”?
House Mother Normal by BS Johnson
Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar
Tea With Mrs Goodman by Philip Toynbee
Landscape Painted With Tea by Milorad Pavić
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Which of these British sitcom writers directed the film version of Iris Murdoch’s novel A Severed Head?
Ray Galton
Alan Simpson
Dick Clement
Ian La Frenais
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HAVE YOU BEEN PAYING ATTENTION? Which of these novelist Pauls is the odd one out?
Paul Theroux
Paul Murray
Paul Lynch
Paul Harding
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What links this year’s Nobel literature laureate, Jon Fosse, with fellow recent winners Svetlana Alexievich (2015), Olga Tokarczuk (2018), Annie Ernaux (2022)?
Same age when they won
Same agent
Same English publisher
Same translator
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Jeremy Corbyn and Len McCluskey have co-edited:
A guide to allotment gardening
A collection of vegetarian recipes
An anthology of radical poetry
A history of Latin American liberation movements for children
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How many of the 20 authors on this year’s Granta list of the "Best of Young British Novelists" had not published a novel at the time of the announcement?
0
4
8
12
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Which late musician’s estate this year auctioned their collection of rare and signed first editions of books, including works by Fitzgerald, Joyce, Woolf, Orwell, Hemingway and Dylan Thomas’s own copy of his first collection, 18 Poems?
Tina Turner
Charlie Watts
David Crosby
Lisa Marie Presley
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To counter the threat of AI-produced books, Amazon restricted self-published authors to uploading:
Three books a year
Three books a month
Three books a week
Three books a day
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2023 was the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio. Of the 235 surviving copies, 85 are held in one place. Is it:
London
Stratford-upon-Avon
Washington DC
Copenhagen
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Which 2023 celebrity memoirist instructed their dentist, mid-procedure, to make an auction phone bid on their behalf for a painting by Modigliani?
Boy George
Barbra Streisand
Bernie Taupin
Britney Spears
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Which of these writers did not attend the coronation of King Charles III?
Julian Fellowes
Tom Stoppard
Stephen Fry
Gyles Brandreth
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Martin Amis, who died this year, wrote science fiction reviews in the early 70s under what pen name?
Martina Twain
Dan Kavanagh
Joseph Anton
Henry Tilney
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For what literary claim to fame was writer JR Moehringer recognised this year by Guinness World Records?
He wrote the “world’s most expensive book”
He wrote the “fastest-selling non-fiction book of all time”
He wrote the “longest book ever published”
He wrote the “ten millionth book to be catalogued by the Library of Congress”
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SAY WHAT? Which novelist complained that the England manager Gareth Southgate had been “quite stuffy about his selection” in not giving the Manchester City midfielder Phil Foden more game time?
Julian Barnes
Jeanette Winterson
Nick Hornby
Jilly Cooper
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Which author declared themselves “horrified” when they heard that “Piers Morgan had praised me”?
Richard Osman
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
JK Rowling
Sally Rooney
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Which musician subject of a new biography explained: “what excited me … was the rhythms of the music, the beats, the feel, the attitude”?
Tom of the Chemical Brothers
Thurston Moore
Tupac Shakur
Cliff Richard
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Which novelist explained their decision not to use a smartphone for environmental and political reasons: “So let me get this right: in exchange for the maps you will give away your democracy, the mental health of your children, your own mental health – for a map? I will get you a map!”?
Zadie Smith
Barbara Kingsolver
Richard Powers
Margaret Atwood
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Which author who died this year recalled the moment that changed their approach to fiction: “I suddenly thought, why the hell not have happy endings?”
Cormac McCarthy
Fay Weldon
Milan Kundera
AS Byatt
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BILLIONAIRES AND TECH BROS: We learned from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk that he was nearly named after which French city in which he was conceived?
Lyon Musk
Nice Musk
Paris Musk
Marseille Musk
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A 2023 biography of which controversial tech figure began with the line: “‘I’m not going to lie,’ [controversial tech figure] told me. This was a lie.”?
Sam Bankman-Fried
Sam Altman
Elizabeth Holmes
Elon Musk
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The writer and software engineer David Auerbach this year published Meganets, in which he asked if it’s too late to control big tech. But what innovation is he credited with?
The chime noise on Windows PCs
The spinning beachball of death on a Mac
The smiley emoticon
The left-handed mouse
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In Jane Martinson’s biography of the Barclay brothers, in which room of the Ritz hotel – which they owned – did rival family members electronically bug each other?
The diamond lobby
The putting-on cloakroom
The cracker hall
The conservatory
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GUESS THE COVERS: Without their titles or authors, can you spot some of this year’s literary highlights? Which book is this?
In Ascension by Martin MacInnes
Water by John Boyne
The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
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Which book is this?
Really Good Actually by Monica Heisey
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Shy by Max Porter
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
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Which book is this?
Yellowface by RF Kuang
Biography of X by Catherine Lacey
The Guest by Emma Cline
Weirdo by Sara Pascoe
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Which book is this?
The New Life by Tom Crewe
The Secret Hours by Mick Herron
After the Funeral by Tessa Hadley
In Memoriam by Alice Winn
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RIGHT AND HONOURABLE: In Nadine Dorries’s book The Plot, the shady cabal that supposedly controls the Conservative party shares its name with a group of poets. Is it:
The Movement?
The Brotherhood?
The Augustans?
The Martians?
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A new book by the TV politics producer Rob Burley is called Why Is This Lying Bastard Lying to Me? Who is credited with coining the phrase?
Kirsty Wark
Laura Kuenssberg
Jeremy Paxman
Robin Day
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“Never be interesting”: which fellow politician gave the former minister and memoirist Rory Stewart this advice when he entered government?
Rachel Reeves
Iain Duncan Smith
Ed Davey
Liz Truss
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Which MP’s memoirs recounted a background that included an armed-robber grandfather, a mother born in prison and a granny whose mynah birds would squawk “We’re out, we’re out!” when the debt collector called?
Lee Anderson
Wes Streeting
Andrea Jenkyns
Theresa May
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To what did Boris Johnson compare Cleo Watson, former aide to him and to Dominic Cummings and now author of the bonkbuster Westminster novel Whips, when he sacked her? A: B: C: D: “Ephialtes of Trachis”
“A summer’s day”
“An ugly old lamp” from a failed marriage
“Michael Gove”
“Ephialtes of Trachis”
1:C, 2:A, 3:D, 4:C, 5:B, 6:D, 7:D, 8:B, 9:C, 10:D, 11:A, 12:B, 13:A, 14:C, 15:C, 16:B, 17:D, 18:A, 19:C, 20:A, 21:C, 22:A, 23:D, 24:C, 25:A - All the others were on the Booker shortlist, 26:C - Fitzcarraldo, a publisher with seven staff members, 27:C, 28:B - Three had published collections of short stories and one’s debut novel was yet to be published, 29:B, 30:D, 31:C, 32:B, 33:A, 34:D, 35:B, 36:D, 37:B, 38:D, 39:A, 40:D, 41:B, 42:A, 43:C, 44:D, 45:C, 46:B, 47:A, 48:D, 49:A, 50:C, 51:D, 52:B, 53:B