I recently compiled a quiz based on the openings of a variety of books on our bookcases. It is a mixture of the well-known and the slightly obscure, the literary and the popular, with a dusting of SF/fantasy sprinkled in.
This page includes the book openings and the answers: there is a spoiler-free version with only the questions also available.
Book 1
A classic classic opening to get started.
Answer: Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
Book 2
Unfortunately, most of what I know about motorcycles comes either from this book or playing with Lego with my family.
Answer: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert M. Pirsig)
Book 3
Answer: The Eyre Affair (Jasper Fforde)
Book 4
Answer: Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
Book 5
This was… bleak.
Answer: Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro)
Book 6
Another classic classic.
Answer: Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)
Book 7
The first of a diabolical duo…
Answer: The Screwtape Letters (C S Lewis)
Book 8
…and the second of the diabolical duo, nearly 50 years later.
Answer: Good Omens (Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman)
Book 9
Start humming the zither music now…
Answer: The Third Man (Graham Greene)
Book 10
Answer: The Complete Yes Prime Minister (Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay)
Book 11
Answer: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson)
Book 12
The first picture round.
Answer: Watchmen (Alan Moore)
Book 13
Answer: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 3/4 (Sue Townsend)
Book 14
Answer: Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
Book 15
A fantastically funny play.
Answer: Noises Off (Michael Frayn)
Book 16
I’m not sure that televisions tuned to dead channels are that colour any more.
Answer: Neuromancer (William Gibson)
Book 17
I was gripped by this when it was Radio 4’s Late Book during one summer vacation, avidly staying up past the midnight news to hear each new episode.
Answer: The Secret History (Donna Tartt)
Book 18
Answer: Parkinson’s Law (C. Northcote Parkinson)
Book 19
Answer: Fabula de Petro Cuniculo - a Latin translation of The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter)
Book 20
An extract from this was a reading at our wedding. (That’s not giving away the answer to a security question, is it?)
Answer: Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
Book 21
There is an art to the building up of suspense.
Answer: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Tom Stoppard)
Book 22
Despite the title of the first chapter, not a novelisation of the Cannon Films He-Man movie (which, as an obscure clue, came out the same year as this novel).
Answer: The Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Wolfe)
Book 23
Discovered in the school library, this was one of the books which encouraged me to go on to study maths at university.
Answer: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (Douglas R Hofstadter)
Book 24
Imagine, if you like, a background of 1970s symphonic rock.
Answer: The War of the Worlds (H G Wells)
Book 25
More from Mars.
Answer: We Will Remember It For You Wholesale (Philip K Dick) - the short story brought to film as “Total Recall”.
Book 26
Answer: Scoop (Evelyn Waugh)
Book 27
Do the next two books have the same author? It depends on how you count it…
Answer: The Player of Games (Iain M Banks)
Book 28
Game developers deserve recognition too!
Answer: The Steep Approach to Garbadale (Iain Banks)
Book 29
A book which I re-read a few times, on a holiday with not quite enough books to fill the days (this being a couple of decades before the Kindle eliminated this particular First World Problem).
Answer: The Chrysalids (John Wyndham)
Book 30
I’d thought “immanentize the Eschaton” an uncommon phrase, but it turns out that there’s a whole Wikipedia article about it (and this book only appears two-thirds of the way down).
Answer: The Illuminatus! Trilogy (Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson)
Book 31
The second picture round.
Answer: Maus (Art Spiegelman)
Book 32
Answer: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Mark Haddon)