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Even More Literary Jeopardy To Test Your Bookish Knowledge

Kelly Jensen May 24, 2021

Kelly Jensen

Editor

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She's the editor/author of (DON'T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen.

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2020 will forever be known as a year of tremendous loss, including that of beloved Jeopardy host Alex Trebek. His run as the host of the trivia show lasted 37 seasons, from 1984 until his death last year. And while as of this writing a new permanent host has yet to be named, anyone who loves the show knows that he’ll forever be tied to it in memory and in legacy.

Whether you’re a diehard Jeopardy fan or simply a book nerd who loves trivia, let’s put your skills to the test with this roundup of literary Jeopardy answers from 2020. You’ll get to try your hand at comics trivia, word nerdery, and so much more.

For those unfamiliar with how Jeopardy works, each of the clues are an answer. Your job is to come up with the question. Here’s an example: “This is the largest independent book website in North America” is the answer. The correct question would be “What is Book Riot?”

J-Archive has the most comprehensive record of Jeopardy’s games and players, and all of the answers and questions were sourced from them. Find below answers by category, with corresponding questions listed by category at the bottom half of the post. Final Jeopardy answers are not included here and this is not a comprehensive roundup.

On your marks. Get set. And go forth with literary Jeopardy!

Literary Jeopardy Answers

Comics and Graphic Novels

The graphic thriller Whiteout takes place at McMurdo station in this very remote place
To correctly read this Japanese type of comic, be sure to start with the panel at the upper right side of the page
The Marvel comic “Spider-Gwen” takes place in a universe where this girlfriend of Peter Parker gets the radioactive bite
The graphic novel They Called Us Enemy is a memoir of this Star Trek actor’s time in an American WWII internment camp
Exit Stage Left reimagines this cat from Hanna-Barbera cartoons as a Southern playwright in the 1950s

A Literary New Year

A pregnant Mrs. Woodhouse attends a strange New Year’s Eve party in this devilish book by Ira Levin
This character’s January 1 diary entry counts Bloody Marys as food (“as contain Worcester sauce & tomatoes”)
He wrote of the Little Match Girl who had “frozen to death on the last evening of the old year”
This author’s Middlemarch includes a party hosted by Mr. Vincy on New Year’s Day
New Year’s Eve finds 4 people contemplating suicide in A Long Way Down by this man who also wrote About a Boy

On The Bookshelf

The appetite for this 2008 dystopian bestseller, the first in a series, has yet to be quenched
In the title of a bestseller by Gail Honeyman, this woman “is Completely Fine”
Wolf Hall is the first in a planned trilogy of books about the rise & fall of this adviser to Henry VIII
She wrote the novel Big Little Lies, the basis for an HBO series
J.D. Vance analyzes the culture of poor white Americans in this 2016 memoir

Quoting Poets

Emma Lazarus wrote, “Give me your tired, your” these
In “Song of Myself” this poet sounds his “barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world”
In this poem Allen Ginsberg tells Carl Solomon, “I’m with you in Rockland” 19 times
This Dylan Thomas title is rhymed with “Though wise men at their end know dark is right”
These 3 words precede “the centre cannot hold” in Yeats’s “The Second Coming”

Fairytales and Folk Tales

In an Irish tale, clever Tom captures this title magical creature who promises to bring him wealth, but deceives him instead
Childe Rowland, youngest son of this legendary monarch of Britain, saves his sister & brothers from an elf king
Made famous by Walt Disney, this student uses magic while his teacher is away, leading to loads of trouble
In this folk tale, the title barnyard trio faces off against a troll under a bridge
The opera Rusalka, about a water nymph who longs to be human, is partly based on this fairy tale by H.C. Andersen

Magazine Collection

This colorful women’s magazine once had sister magazines Blue Book & Green Book
Sports Illustrated has a yearly swimsuit edition; this competing mag is going online-only but will still print its Body Issue
This 66-year-old magazine offers a section for shows on Netflix, Hulu & Amazon called “Stream It!”
Founded in 1922, this magazine sold longer versions of its condensed articles to other magazines
Founded in 1885, this magazine established an institute to test consumer goods, which might get its seal of approval

Their Pen Went Silent

His whale of a tale began in New York City in 1819 & ended there with his death in 1891
This Nobel Laureate, whom Barack Obama called a national treasure, passed away at 88 in 2019
Just prior to his death in 2006, this bestselling novelist wrote a book for younger readers called “Shark Life”
This 6’9″ author who raised dinosaurs from the dead passed away in 2008 after a battle with cancer
Charlie Chaplin read this Sister Carrie author’s poem “The Road I Came” at his funeral & served as a pall bearer

TV Shows Based On Books

Richard Hooker’s Novel About Three Army Doctors was the basis for a film & a TV show, both with this name
In season one of this series based on Jay Asher’s novel, Clay tries to figure out what made Hannah Baker kill herself
The good times roll in Bon Temps, Louisiana, the setting for this drama where some folks really vamped it up
Blake Lively & Penn Badgley starred in this CW series based on Cecily von Ziegesar’s book series about privileged NYC teens
Jeff Lindsay’s books about a very different Miami CSI were the basis for this Showtime series

Poems’ Second Lines

In line 2 of this poem, “The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play”
In a poem by William Blake, these four words precede the second line, “In the forests of the night”
Second line: “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height…”; first line: this
Its second line is “Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore”
Title of the poem with the second line “He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored”

Myth In Modern Literature

Geryon, a character in one of this hero’s labors, falls in love with him in Anne Carson’s The Autobiography of Red
W.H. Auden wrote a famous poem about a painting of him, described as “a boy falling out of the sky”
In a Shelley work this fire bringer is not happy to be nailed to a “wall of eagle-baffling mountain”
The title character of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad tells the story of running this kingdom while waiting for Odysseus to get back
Dionysus is a big factor in The Secret History, this author’s first novel

Number That Book

“Ready Player ___ “
“__ Years a Slave”
By Khaled Hosseini: “A ___ Splendid Suns”
“___ Years in Tibet”
“___ Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis”

Literature: The Subtitle

“Or, the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up”
A 1970s special Pulitzer winner: “The Saga of an American Family”
“Or, the Parish Boy’s Progress”, which included picking a pocket or 2
By Monsieur Flaubert, “A Story of Provincial Life”
Robert Pirsig’s 2-wheeled traveling tale: “An Inquiry into Values”

Libraries

The Margaret Herrick Library of the Motion Picture Academy is home to more than 15,000 of these from 1910 to the present
For her work with libraries & literacy, a promenade outside a library at SMU is named in honor of this first lady
The Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading isn’t in Portugal, but in this carnival city
The Folger Library is in D.C. across 2nd Street SE from this much larger library

Those Are My Literary Characters

Jem Finch, Mayella Ewell
Jason Bourne, a whole lot of people chasing Jason Bourne
Robert Langdon & “the hulking albino named Silas”
Arthur Dimmesdale, (Young) Goodman Brown
Mr. Sammler, who had a “Planet”; Von Humboldt Fleisher, who had a “Gift”

Novels by Chapter Title

“The Whiteness of the Whale”
No lie: “The Beautiful Child Rescues the Puppet”
By Dickens: “Knitting”
1883: “Pieces of eight”
From a Verne work: “Boldly Down the Crater”

Shakespeare by Night

In this play Oberon says, “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania”
Romeo and Juliet: “Good night, good night!” these 5 words “that I shall say good night till it be morrow”
Act II of this play ends with Cornwall saying, “‘Tis a wild night. My Regan counsels well. Come out o’ the storm”
Speaking to Viola in this play, Olivia says, “Love’s night is noon”
Marcellus asks this friend of Hamlet “to watch the minutes of this night, that if again this apparition come, he may…speak to it”

Unfilmed Novels

Jerry Lewis was among those who desperately wanted to play him, J.D. Salinger’s most famous character
Michael Chabon’s “Amazing Adventures” novel is still unfilmed, with juicy parts for both Kavalier & this other title guy
He refused offers to film Foucault’s Pendulum, perhaps because of his experience with the film of his first novel
Plenty of this author’s works have made it to the screen, but Blood Meridian — not yet
Will Ferrell & John Belushi were considered to play Ignatius J. Reilly, but this novel is still unfilmed

Shapely Book Titles

Written by Elliott Roosevelt, “Murder in” this room features his mom, Eleanor, solving a homicide in the White House
Title of Charles Berlitz’s 1974 bestseller about the ships & planes that have vanished in an area, of the Atlantic
This Dave Eggers novel about an uber-powerful internet company that links everything became a Tom Hanks film
It’s the two-word title of a memoir by Shirley Temple Black, who was perhaps the most famous one ever
In a children’s classic by George Selden, Harry the Cat befriends Chester, “The Cricket in” this NYC location

Women’s Memoirs

Fight Like a Girl & Unbecoming recount women’s experiences in this “most masculine” branch of the U.S. military
My Life in France is the story of how this chef found her true calling
I Feel Bad About My Neck, about the travails of aging, is by this late, great writer & director of You’ve Got Mail
Award-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody’s record of her time as one of these performers is titled Candy Girl
This advisor to Barack Obama wrote Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward

Literary Twins

In this 1954 novel, identical twins Sam & Eric are eventually just called Samneric by the other castaways
A chapter in Through the Looking-Glass is named for these mirror-image twins
This is the family name of twins with benefits Jaime & Cersei in the Game of Thrones novels
Each of the two sets of twins in this Shakespeare play have the same name but different home towns — what a mistake!
This alliterative title Dickens character works for the wealthy Cheeryble twins & his sister Kate marries their nephew

Children’s Books

The man in the yellow hat takes care of this inquisitive primate
A farmer gets exasperating but very legible notes from his livestock in Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That do this
The B. stands for Beatrice, a name this Barbara Park kindergartener can’t stand
In a series of kids’ books, this Swedish girl lives by herself in Villa Villekulla
Seen here is the title character of this 2017 book, also the title of a 1954 novel about a very evil little girl

Literary Awards

Like the protagonist in the early part of Dumas’s novel, the judges of the newly created Prix Monte-Cristo are these
No twist necessary in the short stories that since 1919 win the prize named for this short story author
2019 Nobel Prize winner Peter Handke is perhaps best known for the novel this player’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
In 2019 the name of this prestigious prize became a little shorter when the Man Group stopped sponsoring it
The 2017 Women’s Prize for Fiction went to Naomi Alderman for this sci-fi novel where women get shocking abilities

Book Title Animals

John Grogan’s Marley & Me is subtitled “Life and Love with the World’s Worst” this
Aslan represents one of the three title items in this first Chronicle of Narnia
Sue Monk Kidd examined their Secret Life
Book 4 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series is titled So Long, and Thanks for All these
Political tension surrounds 2 Turkish children in Ece Temelkuran’s The Time of Mute these birds

Literary Genres

The Book and the Sword is a Wuxia novel, a Chinese story about these “arts”
In poetry, it’s a long narrative, often about heroic deeds; there’s also a “mock” type
This Latin American genre with an oxymoronic name involves the extraordinary seeming ordinary
Penguin has a line of regency romance novels that are set during the regency of the soon-to-be George IV, in this century
Some of Carson McCullers’ works fall into the genre of “Southern” this, also an old architectural style

A Marriage Made in Literature

Anna Oblonsky is the maiden name of this title character
When Romeo marries Juliet, these two families are joined in matrimony & later, tragedy
Creepy! In order to get closer to Lolita, this man with a double-talk name marries her mother Charlotte Haze
The title of this Daphne du Maurier novel refers to the first Mrs. de Winter; the second Mrs. de Winter is obsessed with her
This 1966 novel is about the first marriage of the character Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre

Literary Landmarks

2006 landmark at the gate of Chicago’s Union Stockyards honors the 100th anniversary of this Upton Sinclair novel
Landmarks in this city at the very bottom of Florida include homes of Robert Frost, John Hersey & Wallace Stevens
Visit the art deco building in NYC where Erich Maria Remarque, author of this antiwar novel about WWI, lived until his death
The birthplace of F. Scott Fitzgerald is a landmark at 481 Laurel Avenue in this midwestern state capital
Nineteen of this man’s monologues, including “Morning, Noon, and Night”, were written at his home in Sag Harbor, New York

Literary Title Beverages

Okakura Kakuzo’s classic work The Book of this beverage explores its history & place in Asian culture
“Rusty Nail” & “Bloody Mary” are titles in the series about this police detective whose name sounds like Tennessee whiskey
Laura Esquivel’s bestseller Like Water for Chocolate takes place in this country around the turn of the 20th century
Are You there, Vodka? It’s Me, this comedian & talk show host & her collection of personal stories & witticisms
Naturally, apple picking is featured in this 1985 John Irving novel

Beastly Books (Name the Animal)

Babar the King by Jean de Brunhoff
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Literary Jeopardy Questions

Don’t forget to add “Who is/are” or “What is/are” to the questions.