Open Books

Question: Which of these novels was not written by a woman?

Answer: Doctor Zhivago (1956) was written by Boris Pasternak. It was so controversial in the Soviet Union that he declined the 1958 Nobel Prize because of official opposition to his work.

Question: Aesop’s fables were written in:

Answer: Aesop’s fables are a collection of Greek morality tales in which most of the characters are animals. The earliest known volume of these stories was published in the 5th century BCE.

Question: T.H. White’s The Once and Future King is about:

Answer: The Once and Future King, a quartet of novels by T.H. White, is based on the legend of King Arthur. Its first volume was adapted into the Disney film The Sword in the Stone (1963).

Question: Which of these novels is about the Civil War?

Answer: Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage is set during the U.S. Civil War.

Question: To which of these literary genres does The War of the Worlds belong?

Answer: H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) is considered a landmark work of science fiction. It is one of the oldest and best-known books to feature aliens (Martians, in this case) in the plot.

Question: In which decade did Anne Frank write her diary?

Answer: Anne Frank began writing her diary during 1942, in the midst of World War II. The work ends abruptly in 1944, when Nazis discovered her family’s hiding place and sent them to concentration camps.