Category: General Interest

On this day in 1862, 10-year-old Alice Liddell received a Christmas present from an Oxford mathematics professor named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. What was the present?   [av_button label=’ Use The Comment Form Below To Submit You Answer’ link=’http://jayruud.com/trivia-question-for-november-26/’ link_target=” color=’theme-color’ custom_bg=’#444444′ custom_font=’#ffffff’ size=’large’ position=’center’ icon_select=’yes’ icon=’ue83b’ font=’entypo-fontello’]  

NAME THAT POEM: Today is the 72nd birthday of acclaimed American poet Sharon Olds. Who can tell me the title of the poem from which these lines come (which is also the title poem of her Pulitzer-Prize winning collection from 2012): Then the drawing on the label of our favorite red wine looks like my… Continue reading Trivia Question for November 19

NAME THAT POEM: Armistice Day (the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918) ended the “war to end wars” whose centennial we observe this year. Name the poem and author from whom these lines come, by a soldier in that war who was killed by a sniper on November 4,… Continue reading Trivia Question for November 12

DON’T LEAVE ME THIS WAY: What famous novel ends with these lines?  “I do not admit that Gopher Prairie is greater or more generous than Europe! I do not admit that dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women! I may not have fought the good fight, but I have kept the faith.” “Sure. You bet… Continue reading Trivia Question for November 5

DON’T START WITH ME: What famous literary text begins with this sentence, and who wrote it? To write the Life of him who excelled all mankind in writing the lives of others, and who, whether we consider his extraordinary endowments, or his various works, has heen equalled by few in any age, is an arduous,… Continue reading Trivia Question for October 29

The oldest ever winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature was born on this date in 1919. Who was it?     [av_button label=’ Use The Comment Form Below To Submit You Answer’ link=’http://jayruud.com/contest-question-for-october-22/’ link_target=” color=’theme-color’ custom_bg=’#444444′ custom_font=’#ffffff’ size=’large’ position=’center’ icon_select=’yes’ icon=’ue83b’ font=’entypo-fontello’]      

Today is the birthday of P.G. Wodehouse, famous for writing nearly 100 volumes of comic fiction. Wodehouse is best known for his novels featuring Bertie Wooster and his butler Jeeves. But does anyone out there know Wodehouse’s other best-known series of comic novels? Trivia bragging rights for the day if you can name the country… Continue reading Contest Question for October 15

DON’T START WITH ME: What famous English novel begins with this paragraph? It is a trite but true observation, that examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts: and if this be just in what is odious and blameable, it is more strongly so in what is amiable and praiseworthy. Here emulation most effectually… Continue reading Contest Question for October 8

On this date in 1857, the first installment of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary was published. It offended the government of the French Second Empire so much that Flaubert was brought to trial on obscenity charges in January of 1857. He was acquitted, but later that same year, another famous literary text was brought to trial in France, and… Continue reading Contest Question for October 1

DON’T START WITH ME: What famous novel (by what author) begins this way?   In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this… Continue reading Contest Question for September 24