Trivial Pursuit for Book Lovers
April 13, 2012
Children’s: Who earned fame for illustrating beloved characters like Eloise and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle?
Classics: What author of The Reproductive Behaviour of the Ten-spined Stickleback found better sales with his book on human sex life, The Naked Ape?
Non-Fiction: What Texas columnist wrote biographies of George W. Bush entitled Shrub and Bushwhacked?
Book Club: What playwright does actress Jessica Pruitt fall for, after she mysteriously winds up in 16th-century Venice, in Erica Jong’s Shylock’s Daughter?
Authors: What spy novelist did Vice President Dan Quayle ask to join the National Space Council?
Book Bag: What grandma leaves her garden club long enough to toil as a CIA operative, in umpteen Dorothy Gilman mysteries?
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Oh, how I loved Mrs. Piggle Wiggle! Those books were written by Betty MacDonald and illustrated by Hilary Knight.
Children’s: Hilary Knight
Classics: Desmond Morris. I can picture the spine of this on my family’s bookshelf, but I never read it.
Non-Fiction: Molly Ivins
Book Club: Based on the title, I’ll have to guess Shakespeare.
Authors: ? I can’t believe I haven’t heard this story.
Book Bag: ?
Classics: Desmond Morris, whose name I will never forget and to whom I am eternally grateful, because The Naked Ape saved me the mortification of asking my mother about the facts of life when I was fourteen and much too old not to know.
Non Fiction: Molly Ivins
Book Club: Surely it must be Shakespeare?
Book Bag: Mrs Pollifax
I loved the Mrs Pollifax books, up until the one where she gets tortured. That got a little too real for my taste.
How embarrassing. I didn’t know a single one, even to guess at. Last week I had 5 out of 6 so the law of averages is not with me.
This game rewards guessing, though. Everybody who guessed Shakespeare just from seeing the character’s name Shylock got it right.
Children’s: Hilary Knight
That’s all I got!
I know about Mrs. Pollifax.
I’d have to guess Shakespeare re: a playwright featured in a book called “Shylock’s Daughter”.
The spy novelist….I’m guessing Tom Clancy. Robert Ludlum also came to mind, but I’ll go with Clancy, on the basis of timing and on the basis of his emphasis on the technology of intelligence work and warefare. (Ludlum is more about human intelligence–and melodrama.)
You are right. I have an inkling that the intelligence community was mighty impressed with the guesses Clancy made for some of his first novels.
Children’s: Hilary Knight
Classics: Desmond Morris
Non-Fiction: Molly Ivins
Book Club: Shakespeare
Authors: Tom Clancy
Book Bag: Mrs. Pollifax