125 Literary Jeopardy Answers To Test Your Bookish Trivia
A few years back, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Jeopardy on television. I pulled together a set of posts featuring Literary Jeopardy final answers. Given that bookish trivia continues to be a powerhouse on the show, it seems about time to revisit some of the best book category answers and put your question skills to the test.
For those who don’t know 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.
Get ready. Get set. It’s literary Jeopardy!
Literary Jeopardy Answers
From Page To Screen
- This Spielberg Holocaust film was based on a book by Thomas Keneally.
- A novel by Chuck Palahniuk was the basis for this film starring Brad Pitt & Edward Norton.
- She stars as literary forger Lee Israel in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”, based on the memoir of the same name.
- This film with Ray Liotta & Joe Pesci was based on the book “Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family”
- Emma Stone played aspiring writer Skeeter Phelan in this ’60s-set film based on the novel of the same name
Literary Ladies
- 1944’s “Absent in the Spring” is one of the non-mystery novels she wrote under the name Mary Westmacott
- On Ursula Le Guin’s passing, George R.R. Martin called her one of the great writers of these paired genres of the past century
- It’s the first name shared by bestselling authors Delinsky, Tuchman & Kingsolver
- During the Harlem Renaissance, she wrote “Their Eyes Were Watching God”
- At 15 she wrote a satirical “History of England” by “a partial, prejudiced, & ignorant historian”
Numeric Lit
- This kid lit classic has a chapter called “The Puppies Arrive”
Non-Adverb “-LY” Words
- A young female horse
- In scientific classification, it’s between order & genus
- 2 independent countries lie within the borders of this nation
- 5-letter piece of ornamental lace or embroidery found on a table
- Hospital attendant job with non-medical duties
International Literature
- The novel titled this “Patient” is set in Italy & was written by Sri Lankan-Canadian Michael Ondaatje
- Born off Queensland, Kath Walker, aka Oodgeroo Noonuccal, wrote “We Are Going”, the 1st book of poems by a person of this ethnicity
- Gabriel Sundukian wrote this language’s greatest dramas in what’s now the country of Georgia
- This poet told the Nobel Banquet, “Our Irish theatre could (never) have come into existence but for” Henrik Ibsen
- Son of a Polish patriot, he was born in what’s now Berdychiv, Ukraine & wrote works like “Typhoon” in English
One-Word Book Titles
- This book by Malcolm Gladwell subtitled “The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” is a real eye-opener
- Born a slave, Sethe escapes to Ohio but is haunted by memories of a lost baby in this Toni Morrison novel
- 2 psychics have a pyrokinetic child in this Stephen King work
- This 1974 James Michener novel covers centuries, not just 1 significant year, in the history of Colorado
- In this 1984 William Gibson cyberpunk classic, a data thief matches wits with a powerful artificial intelligence
The Book Nook
- “Pebble in the Sky” was his first novel, the “Foundation” of a long & prolific career writing science fiction
- “The Fastest Kid in the Fifth Grade” is chapter 3 of “Bridge to” this enchanted land
- He taught us “The Power of Myth”
- The title of this debut novel by Gillian Flynn is an allusion to cutting, part of Camille Preaker’s traumatic past in the book
- The first book in a series, it opens in Inverness in 1945 & begins. “It wasn’t a very likely place for disappearances”
Read Any Bestsellers Lately?
- No. 1 on the New York Times’ combined print & e-book nonfiction list in May 2019 was the long-awaited “Report” by this man
- In 2019 this Rick Riordan title guy—”& the Olympians”, too—spent week 500 on the children’s series list, & that’s no myth
- Dirk Pitt returned for book No. 25 in “Celtic Empire” by father-&-son Clive & Dirk this (& it’s not Pitt)
- Baseball writer Tyler Kepner took an in-depth look at 10 types of pitches in a book with this single letter as its title
- This comedian may have decided “Life Will Be the Death of Me”, but not before she made the bestseller list
Characters In The Work
- Hrothgar, Wiglaf
- Lennie Small, George Milton
- Don Fernando, Dulcinea
- Richard Parker, Orange Juice, Santosh Patel
- By Cormac McCarthy: the Kid, Judge Holden
Biographers
- W.E.B. Du Bois wrote a 1909 biography defending this abolitionist who was hanged 50 years earlier
- His “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.” came out in 1791, 7 years after his friend’s death
- “The Pioneers”, the latest by David McCullough, features the settlers of this American territory just past the Ohio river
- Rose Byrne played biographer Rebecca Skloot in the HBO movie “The Immortal Life of” this woman
- His fourth volume on Lyndon Johnson appeared in 2012 & was followed by great anticipation of volume 5
Literary Narrators
- In the epilogue to “Moby-Dick”, this rescued narrator quotes from the book of Job: “and I only am escaped alone to tell thee”
- Daisy Buchanan’s cousin, he narrates “The Great Gatsby”
- Though he takes his own life in “The Sound and the Fury”, Quentin Compson is back to narrate this author’s “Absalom, Absalom!”
- In “The Book Thief”, the narrator isn’t a who per se but this, knocking at the door
- Montresor, the narrator of this Poe story, lures Fortunato to his doom with the promise of a fine Spanish sherry
Books for Younger Readers
- Emily Elizabeth & this large colorful canine have many adventures in works by Norman Bridwell
- She wrote the classics “Ramona the Pest” & “Beezus & Ramona”
- In Kipling’s “The Jungle Book”, this mongoose faces off against 2 cobras to protect his human family
- Mary Pope Osborne has taken kids all through history as Jack & Annie travel in this magic structure
- Milo learns about time from a watchdog named Tock after driving through this mysterious title object
20th Century Novels
- A futuristic society revolves around science & efficiency in this 1932 novel by Aldous Huxley
- “A House Divided” completed Pearl Buck’s trilogy that began 4 years earlier with this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
- A line from this novel: “Name’s Joad, Tom Joad”
- This novel by Garcia Marquez tells of the Buendia family in the mythic town of Macondo from the 1820s to the 1920s
- Nadsat, the fictional language in this book, is from the Russian suffix that means “teen”
Books Going Back In Time
- Garry Wills’ 1992 “Lincoln at” this place examines an event sixscore & nine years previous
- The New Orleans Advocate reported a “flood of books” for this event’s 10th anniversary, including “Cooking Up a Storm”
- It’s the title town where 2 former Texas Rangers live in the 1870s in a classic novel by Larry McMurtry
- “I woke to the sound of a mosquito whining in my left ear”, begins 2000’s “Fever 1793”, about an epidemic of this disease
- His 1815 novel “Guy Mannering” begins in the year “17–” with Guy visiting some ruins in Dumfries
American Poets Laureate
- The federal laureate position is technically called “Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry” by this library
- This “Chicago” poet was Illinois’ poet laureate in the last years of his life from 1962 to 1967
- Colorado laureate Milford Shields must have been surprised when the governor also made this singer laureate in 1974
- In 1998 Lawrence Ferlinghetti was made this city’s first poet laureate
- In 2019 Joy Harjo of the Muscogee Creek Nation of this state was named the first Native American poet laureate
The Non-Fiction Book’s Subtitle
- With a rhyming title: “The True Story of the Manson Murders”
- “A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything”
- About Louis Zamperini: “A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption”
- By Sheryl Sandberg: “Women, Work, and the Will to Lead”
- Made into a Jennifer Aniston movie, “The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys”
Ban That Book!
- A book about George, who takes the new name Melissa, earned some bans but also one of these Greek-letter awards AKA the Lammys
- This Stowe novel was banned in parts of the slave-holding South & in serf-holding Russia
- Forget the love story—Pasternak’s “Dr. Zhivago” was banned in the USSR until 1987 because of its portrayal of this commie faction
- Due to its alleged obscenity, in 1957 U.S. Customs seized 520 copies of this Allen Ginsberg poem printed in England
- The 1722 novel “Moll Flanders” by this author has been taken off shelves for lewdness
A Tree Grows In Book Land
- The Whomping Willow does its whomping on the grounds of this castle
- The party tree that grew in this Middle-Earth land was the location of Bilbo’s farewell speech
- Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree” gives these fruits & more to a thoughtless boy
- “It was a right motley company that gathered about the noble greenwood tree in Sherwood’s depths” in an 1883 tale of this hero
- After this title character accepts Rochester’s proposal, lightning splits a chestnut tree at Thornfield Hall
Ancient Rome Fiction
- Thornton Wilder’s novel about the time of Julius Caesar in Rome has this title, like an unlucky date for Julius
- “The Gladiator” & “Rebellion” are the subtitles of Ben Kane’s books about this man who led a slave army against Rome
- When the death of a popular politician threatens to destroy the Roman Republic, Gordianus the Finder must solve “A Murder on” this famous road
- In “The Eagle of the Ninth”, a soldier seeks to discover what became of a legion that went missing in this faraway island
- This novel by Robert Graves is written as the memoir of a reluctant 1st century Roman emperor
Book Numbers
- By Bret Easton Ellis: “Less Than ____”
- “The ____ Habits of Highly Effective People”
- An international bestseller: “The ____ -Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared”
- From “The Charge of the Light Brigade”: “All in the valley of Death rode the ___”
- A Temperance Brennan novel: “___ Bones” (referring to the number of bones in the body)
The National Book Awards
- This Tom Wolfe work was spacey but had the correct contents to win a 1980 Nonfiction Award
- The 2017 Nonfiction winner was Masha Gessen’s “The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed” this superpower
- Colson Whitehead liberated the 2016 Fiction Award for his novel about this title 19th century “conveyance”
- Thomas Pynchon found the Fiction Prize at the end of this 1973 novel
- He won Fiction Awards for “The Magic Barrel” & “The Fixer” but not for “The Natural”
Fictional Characters
- This Narnian lion appears in several other forms, including a lamb
- Jilted on her wedding day, this Dickens character teaches her ward Estella to despise men
- Much of “The Color Purple” is made up of letters written by her to God
- Hemingway’s collections “In Our Time” & “Men Without Women” feature this character based partly on Hemingway
- “The Good Earth” begins with Wang Lung’s marriage day—to this woman
True Story
- Natalie Y. Moore examined “The South Side: A Portrait of” this city “and American Segregation “
- A gopher is on the cover of the book titled this comedy film: “The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story”
- A nonfiction classic by Rabbi Harold Kushner is “When” these “Happen to Good People”
- Barack Obama’s first book was “Dreams from My Father”; his second was this “bold” bestseller that arrived in 2006
- He wrote of the loss of both his parents in a 5-week span in “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”
Her First Published Book
- 1811: “Sense and Sensibility”
- 1920: “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”
- 2005: “Twilight”
- 1940: “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter”
- 1988: “The Bean Trees”
Quotable Books
- 1865: “She was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face”
- 1958: “It was some little while before I could bring myself to open the window, and ask Miss Golightly what she wanted”
- 1990: “You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose”
- 1873: “Phileas Fogg had won his wager of twenty thousand pounds!”
- A recent Pulitzer Prize winner set during WWII: “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever”
Literary Jeopardy Questions
From Page To Screen
- What is Schindler’s List?
- What is Fight Club?
- Who is Melissa McCarthy?
- What is Goodfellas?
- What is The Help?
Literary Ladies
- Who is Agatha Christie?
- What are science fiction and fantasy?
- What is Barbara?
- Who is Zora Neale Hurston?
- Who is Jane Austen?
Numeric Lit
- What is One Hundred and One Dalmatians?
- What is Fifty Shades of Grey?
- What is Catch-22?
- What is Shook The World?
- What is The Sign of Four?
Non-Adverb “-LY” Words
- What is a filly?
- What is family?
- What is Italy?
- What is doily?
- What is orderly?
International Literature
- What is The English?
- What are Aboriginal?
- What is Armenian?
- Who is William Butler Yeats?
- Who is Joseph Conrad?
One-Word Book Titles
- What is Blink?
- What is Beloved?
- What is Firestarter?
- What is Centennial?
- What is Neuromancer?
The Book Nook
- Who is Asimov?
- What is Terabithia?
- Who is Joseph Campbell?
- What is Sharp Objects?
- What is Outlander?
Read Any Bestsellers Lately?
- Who is Robert Mueller?
- Who is Percy Jackson?
- Who is Cussler?
- What is K?
- Who is Chelsea Handler?
Characters In The Work
- What is Beowulf?
- What is Of Mice and Men?
- What is Don Quixote?
- What is The Life of Pi?
- What is Blood Meridian?
Biographers
- Who is John Brown?
- Who is Boswell?
- What is the Northwest Territory?
- Who is Henrietta Lacks?
- Who is Robert Caro?
Literary Narrators
- Who is Ishmael?
- Who is Nick Carraway?
- Who is Faulkner?
- What is Death?
- What is “The Cask of Amontillado?”
Books for Younger Readers
- Who is Clifford (the big red dog)?
- Who is Beverly Cleary?
- Who is Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
- What is The Magic Tree House?
- What is The Phantom Tollbooth?
20th Century Novels
- What is Brave New World?
- What is The Good Earth?
- What is The Grapes of Wrath?
- What is One Hundred Years of Solitude?
- What is A Clockwork Orange?
Books Going Back In Time
- What is Gettysburg?
- What is Hurricane Katrina?
- What is Lonesome Dove?
- What is yellow fever?
- Who is Walter Scott?
American Poets Laureate
- What is The Library of Congress?
- Who is Carl Sandberg?
- Who is John Denver?
- What is San Francisco?
- What is Oklahoma?
The Non-Fiction Book’s Subtitle
- What is Helter Skelter?
- What is Freakonomics?
- What is Unbroken?
- What is Lean In?
- What is He’s Just Not That Into You?
Ban That Book!
- What is the Lambda award?
- What is Uncle Tom’s Cabin?
- Who are the Bolsheviks?
- What is “Howl?”
- Who is Daniel Defoe?
A Tree Grows In Book Land
- What is Hogwarts?
- What is the Shire?
- What is an apple?
- Who is Robin Hood?
- Who is Jane Eyre?
Ancient Rome Fiction
- What is The Ides of March?
- Who is Spartacus?
- What is The Appian Way?
- What is Britain?
- What is I, Claudius?
Book Numbers
- What is zero?
- What is 7?
- What is 100?
- What is 600?
- What is 206?
The National Book Awards
- What is The Right Stuff?
- What is Russia?
- What is The Underground Railroad?
- What is Gravity’s Rainbow?
- Who is Bernard Malamud?
Fictional Characters
- Who is Aslan?
- Who is Miss Havisham?
- Who is Celie?
- Who is Nick Adams?
- Who is O-Lan?
True Story
- What is Chicago?
- What is Caddyshack?
- What are bad things?
- What is The Audacity of Hope?
- Who is Dave Eggers?
Her First Published Book
- Who is Jane Austen?
- Who is Agatha Christie?
- Who is Stephenie Meyer?
- Who is Carson McCullers?
- Who is Barbara Kingsolver?
Quotable Books
- What is Alice in Wonderland?
- What is Breakfast at Tiffany’s?
- What is Oh, The Places You’ll Go?
- What is Around The World in 80 Days?
- What is All The Light We Cannot See?
