Q 01/05

Which author took friend Harper Lee to Kansas to research the murders behind In Cold Blood?

A) Norman Mailer

B) Truman Capote

C) Gore Vidal

D) John Steinbeck

Answer · why

B) Truman Capote

Truman Capote called the 1966 book a nonfiction novel: the true story of the Clutter family killings, told with the pacing of fiction.

Q 02/05

Which 1962 book by biologist Rachel Carson warned that pesticides such as DDT were harming the environment?

A) The Sea Around Us

B) Desert Solitaire

C) The Population Bomb

D) Silent Spring

Answer · why

D) Silent Spring

Silent Spring swayed public opinion so strongly that it led to a US ban on DDT for farm use, despite fierce opposition from chemical companies.

Q 03/05

Anne Frank addressed most entries in the diary she kept in hiding to a character with which name?

A) Kitty

B) Lotte

C) Greta

D) Hanna

Answer · why

A) Kitty

Kitty began as one of several imagined pen pals in the first notebook, but by November 1942 Anne Frank was writing to her alone.

Q 04/05

Which word for an idea that spreads through a culture did Richard Dawkins coin in The Selfish Gene?

A) Trope

B) Zeitgeist

C) Meme

D) Archetype

Answer · why

C) Meme

Meme was coined in 1976 as a unit of cultural evolution that copies itself much as a gene does, long before the word came to mean a joke shared online...

Q 05/05

Which magazine gave its entire August 31, 1946 issue to John Hersey's report on the Hiroshima bombing?

A) The Atlantic

B) The New Yorker

C) Harper's Magazine

D) Saturday Evening Post

Answer · why

B) The New Yorker

The New Yorker had planned to spread John Hersey's article over four issues, then gave a whole edition to it instead.