Q 01/05

Which novel set on a single June day in Dublin tops the Modern Library list of 100 best novels?

A) Lolita

B) Ulysses

C) Nostromo

D) Ragtime

Answer · why

B) Ulysses

Ulysses follows Leopold Bloom and two other Dubliners through 16 June 1904, a date fans now celebrate every year as Bloomsday.

Q 02/05

Which cartoon dad shares his name with an Iowa bookkeeper in Nathanael West's novel The Day of the Locust?

A) Fred Flintstone

B) Peter Griffin

C) George Jetson

D) Homer Simpson

Answer · why

D) Homer Simpson

Homer Simpson is a former hotel accountant who moves to California for his health in the 1939 novel. Matt Groening, whose own father was called Homer,...

Q 03/05

Which Joseph Heller war satire about the bombardier Yossarian began life with the number 18 in its title?

A) Catch-22

B) Battle Cry

C) Mister Roberts

D) Fahrenheit 451

Answer · why

A) Catch-22

Catch-22 started out as Catch-18, but the number was changed so that readers would not confuse it with Leon Uris's newly published war novel Mila 18.

Q 04/05

Which English author placed both a farmyard fable and a dystopia about Big Brother on the Modern Library list?

A) Aldous Huxley

B) H. G. Wells

C) George Orwell

D) William Golding

Answer · why

C) George Orwell

George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, whose dystopia stands at No. 13 on the list and whose fable Animal Farm stands at No. 31.

Q 05/05

Which Beat Generation writer typed On the Road on one continuous 120-foot scroll of paper?

A) Allen Ginsberg

B) Jack Kerouac

C) Neal Cassady

D) Gregory Corso

Answer · why

B) Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac cut and taped sheets of tracing paper into the roll, and the published novel later hid his real-life friends behind pseudonyms.