Friday, April 9, 2010

Trivial Pursuit for Book-Lovers

Children's: What Margaret Wise Brown classic invites the reader to say goodnight to, among other things, a comb and a brush?

Classics: What adventure novel is mentioned in the opening line of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?

Non-Fiction: What 496-page book about a common seasoning is Mark Kurlansky's paean to "the only rock we eat"?

Book Club: What author describes a man rethinking his own sexuality once his son comes out of the closet, in The Lost Language of Cranes?

Authors: Who was the first of the Beat Generation poets to be honored as a bobblehead doll, thanks to the 2003 Lowell Spinners minor league baseball team?

Book Bag: What female detective stars in novels like Burn Marks, Hard Time and Windy City Blues?

8 comments:

Alison said...

Children's: Goodnight Moon! (Calvin probably could have answered that one, too)

Non-Fiction: Salt

Book Bag: VI Warshawski (which I am probably spelling wrong)

It's killing me that I can't remember the Huck Finn one...

Harriet M. Welsch said...

Children's: Goodnight Moon. Did you see the Goodnight Moon parody in this year's Washington Peeps Show? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/magazine/peeps2010/video/index.html?video=5

Classics: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Non-Fiction: Salt

Book Club: David Leavitt. I've been meaning to read this one.

Authors: Kerouac? Just a guess, but that's who I'd do first.

Book Bag: Sara Paretsky's V. I. Warshawski

Karen said...

Goodnight Moon

Salt

Jack Kerouac?

Maybe Kinsey Milhone? That's absolutely a guess.

Jenny said...

Goodnight Moon, Tom Sawyer, Salt, and that's all I got. :P

Memory said...

Finally, a question I can answer! Classics is THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER. (...which I knew before I read the other comments).

Marie Cloutier said...

I'd guess Kerouac because he's from Lowell. All the rest I don't know but I remember seeing a TV movie of THE LOST LANGUAGE OF THE CRANES; can't remember who wrote it originally though! I love your trivial pursuits!

Jeanne said...

Children's: Goodnight Moon
Classics: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Non-Fiction: Salt
Book Club: David Leavitt
Authors: Jack Kerouac
Book Bag: V.I. Warshawski

Congratulations--once again Harriet got them all right!

I had not seen the peeps show before!

The first line of Huck Finn is so charming I memorized it at some point, as many of you seem to have also.

The Lost Language of Cranes is a classic and a good novel.

I'm a fan of Sara Paretsky's Chicago detective V.I. Warshawski and recommend you start with some of the early titles:
Indemnity Only (1982)
Deadlock (1984)
Killing Orders (1985)
Bitter Medicine (1987)
Blood Shot (1988) Published as Toxic Shock in the UK.
Burn Marks (1990)
Guardian Angel (1992)
Tunnel Vision (1994)
Hard Time (1999)
Total Recall (2001)
Blacklist (2003)
Fire Sale (2005)
Hardball (2009)
Windy City Blues is a collection of short stories.

Harriet said...

I used to live a couple of blocks from Sara Paretsky. We'd see her prowling around the neighborhood every now and again. I'm not a big mystery reader, but I do enjoy V.I. every now and again.