100 Great Books Quiz Questions and Answers - Trivia Quiz Night (2024)

Finally, it’s one for the bibliophiles! Yup, a quiz perfectly curated for people with an innate passion for the written word, in the form of books. Whether you’re a Kindle carrier or like a good old fashioned paperback, we’ve penned down 100 of the best books quiz questions and answers for your trivia night.

With ten rounds covering everything from highbrow literature to easy reading, sometimes risqué written fodder, let’s see how you (and your fellow books quiz lovers) do. Ready, steady, quiz!

Easy Books Quiz Questions and Answers

Why not kick off this book trivia night with a round of super simple quiz questions that hopefully even the most casual of booklovers can complete? Here are ten basic books questions to get your trivia juices flowing…

1. Anastasia Steele first appears in which risqué 2011 novel by E.L. James?

2. What is the second Harry Potter book called?

3. In The Hobbit, what sort of creature is Smaug?

4. Which Dickens character says “Please, Sir, I want some more”

5. Which author created Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn?

6. Which Jules Vern character travelled around the world with Passe Partout?

7. To which kingdom of living things do the Triffids, who take over the Earth in a famous John Wyndham novel, belong?

8. In which 18th century novel does the protagonist eventually marry Mr. Rochester?

9. Which prolific US author wrote It, The Shining and Misery?

10. Who was Bertie Wooster’s valet in the series of P.G. Wodehouse stories?

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Easy Literature Quiz Answers

1. Fifty Shades of Grey
2. Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets
3. Dragon
4. Oliver Twist
5. Mark Twain
6. Phileas Fogg
7. Plants
8. Jane Eyre
9. Stephen King
10. Jeeves

Did you know? It actually took Phileas Fogg 81 days to travel around the world. He thinks he has lost his bet before realising that he has in effect gained a day by travelling eastwards from London.

Modern Literature Quiz Questions and Answers

In this second round, let’s pump up the volume (volume, geddit? 😀) and go for a contemporary take on questions about books. It’s all about modern literature, and more recent reading materials.

1. Who won the Booker Prize in 2009 and again in 2012?

2. What item does Antonio leave in Cephalonia with Pelagia in a 1993 novel?

3. Piscine Molitor Patel and Richard Parker are the main characters in which novel?

4. The premise for which novel is a high school massacre perpetrated by Jesus Navarro, the title character’s best friend?

5. Who wrote A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Thief?

6. Which novel, named for the outfit of one of the protagonists, describes the friendship of Bruno and Shmuel?

7. What is the three-word title of Bernadine Evaristo’s 2019 Booker Prize-winning novel about the lives of 12 characters, mostly black women?

8. Who wrote No Country for Old Men and The Road?

9. Whose 1988 novel led to Ayatollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa calling for his death?

10. Which Kazuo Ishiguro novel is set in a dystopian alternate England where humans are cloned to be organ donors?

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Modern Literature Quiz Answers

1. Hilary Mantel
2. His mandolin
3. Life of Pi
4. Vernon God Little
5. Khaled Hosseini
6. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
7. Girl, Woman, Other
8. Cormac McCarthy
9. Salman Rushdie
10. Never Let Me Go

Authors Quiz Questions and Answers

Never read Fitzgerald? You Gatsby kidding me!

Okay, enough with the bad literary puns. Instead, let’s dive headfirst into another great round of book quiz questions, this time all about famous authors. Whether it’s Jane Austen or Agatha Christie, let’s see how you fare in this round of ten.

1. In Ancient Greek literature, who is the presumed author of The Odyssey and The Iliad?

2. Which author wrote The Canterbury Tales?

3. A civil servant under Oliver Cromwell, who wrote Samson Agonistes and Paradise Lost?

4. Which 18th century author created the character Lemuel Gulliver, who journeyed to the land of Lilliput and beyond?

5. Which author, the wife of a famous poet, wrote Frankenstein?

6. Which of the Bronte sisters wrote Wuthering Heights?

7. Which English writer’s 66 detective novels helped make her the best-selling author of all time?

8. Which author wrote Down and Out in Paris and London, Burmese Days and The Road to Wigan Pier as well as other more well-known titles?

9. Which American author wrote The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men?

10. Who wrote the autobiographical novel I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings?

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Authors Quiz Answers

1. Homer
2. Geoffrey Chaucer
3. John Milton
4. Jonathan Swift
5. Mary Shelley
6. Emily
7. Agatha Christie
8. George Orwell
9. John Steinbeck
10. Maya Angelou

Book Characters Quiz Questions and Answers

We often conjure up the most amazing characters, as they almost leap off the pages of our favourite fictional novels. In this round, let’s explore some of the more famous figures in literature, with a round dedicated to well-known fictional characters.

1. Who invented the characters Thomas Gradgrind, Silas Wegg and Uriah Heep?

2. Who is the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye?

3. Which novel was the first to feature the main character Lisbeth Salander?

4. Ben Gunn, Jim Hawkins and Billy Bones are characters in which high seas adventure?

5. Which knight of medieval literature sought to attack a windmill in the belief that it was a giant?

6. Which lawyer tries and fails to save Tom Robinson?

7. Which tragic character lived in her wedding dress and stopped all her clocks at the time she was jilted?

8. Who was the one-legged, white whale-obsessed commander of the Pequod?

9. Which character rejected proposals from Mr. Collins and, initially, Mr. D’Arcy?

10. Which Harvard professor of Religious Iconology, Symbology and Art History became embroiled in the murder of Jacques Saunière?

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Book Characters Quiz Answers

1. Charles Dickens
2. Holden Caulfield
3. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
4. Treasure Island
5. Don Quixote
6. Atticus Finch
7. Miss Havisham
8. Captain Ahab
9. Elisabeth Bennett
10. Robert Langdon

Interesting Fact: An icon for rebellion, Holden Caulfield appeared in multiple J.D. Salinger short stories before The Catcher in the Rye, though not all details in these stories are consistent with the famous version of the character.

Famous First Lines of Books Quiz

As Dickens said in A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” And, in this round of our brilliant books quiz, we might just be in the worst of them, as we challenge you and your quizzing contestants to name the book, based on the famous first line.

1. “It was a bright, cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

2. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

3. “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.”

4. “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” (Spanish)

5. “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday. I don’t know.” (French)

6. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” (Russian)

7. “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” (German)

8. “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

9. “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

10. “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”

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Famous First Lines of Books Quiz Answers

1. 1984
2. Pride and Prejudice
3. The Great Gatsby
4. One Hundred Years of Solitude
5. The Stranger/The Outsider
6. Anna Karenina
7. The Metamorphosis
8. David Copperfield
9. The Catcher in the Rye
10. To Kill a Mockingbird

Fictional Addresses from Books Quiz Questions and Answers

Here at Trivia Quiz Night HQ (address unknown), we love an obscure location. Like Spooner Street from series Family Guy or 124 Conch Street from that veritable animated feast, Spongebob Squarepants. But how many famous fictional addresses do you and your participants know?

Test your literature location knowledge in this round by confirming which literary character lives at the address listed. To make it slightly easier, we’ve added the author’s name in brackets, to give you a quick clue.

1. 221b Baker Street (Conan Doyle)
2. 4 Privet Drive (Rowling)
3. Manderley (Du Maurier)
4. Satis House (Dickens)
5. Pemberley (Austen)
6. Bag End (Tolkien)
7. 32 Windsor Gardens (Bond)
8. Wuthering Heights (Brontë)
9. Green Gables (Montgomery)
10. Elsinore Castle (Shakespeare)

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Fictional Addresses from Books Quiz Answers

1. Sherlock Holmes
2. Harry Potter (and the Dursleys)
3. Rebecca (and Maxim de Winter, the new Mrs de Winter and Mrs Danvers)
4. Miss Havisham (and Estella)
5. Mr D’Arcy (and eventually Elizabeth Bennett)
6. Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins
7. Paddington Bear (and the Browns)
8. Heathcliff, Cathy and The Earnshaws
9. Anne (and Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert)
10. Hamlet (and Gertrude, Claudius and the ghost of Hamlet’s father)

Fun fact: When the stories were written, Baker Street did not have a number 221. After it was extended in the 1930s, the Abbey National Building Society occupied 219-229 and for many years employed a full-time secretary to respond to mail for Sherlock Holmes!

Children’s Books Quiz Questions and Answers

A round ideal for parents out there (or in case you’re wanting to involve the young ‘uns in this quizzing adventure), it’s time for a look into kids literature. Never before have you been so pleased as punch that you went through all of Winnie the Pooh and binge-read Alice in Wonderland!

1. Who has knobbly knees, turned out toes and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose?

2. Which four children go into Wonka’s Factory along with Charlie Bucket?

3. Where do Dame Washalot, Silky and Moon Face live?

4. Which wood is home to Kanga, Roo, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore?

5. Who are Peter Rabbit’s sisters?

6. After an overindulgent Saturday, what did The Hungry Caterpillar eat on Sunday to make himself feel better?

7. What does Paddington Bear keep under his hat?

8. What sort of animal is Gerald, the laughingstock of the jungle dance?

9. Who drank all Daddy’s beer and all the water in the tap?

10. What distinguished Timmy from the other members of the Famous Five?

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Children’s Literature Quiz Answers

1. The Gruffalo
2. Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregard and Mike Teevee
3. The Magic Faraway Tree
4. Hundred Acre Wood
5. Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail
6. One nice green leaf
7. An emergency marmalade sandwich
8. A Giraffe
9. The Tiger Who Came to Tea
10. He was a dog

The World of Roald Dahl

While we’re on the subject of kid’s literature, we felt we would have missed a trick if we didn’t dedicate at least ten questions to one of the world’s most wonderful wordsmiths, Roald Dahl. As renowned for his kids books as he is his great books for grown-ups, this round is all about his most celebrated characters and weird and wacky written works.

1. What does Mrs Twit put in Mr Twit’s spaghetti?

2. How does Amanda Thripp get over the fence at Cruncham Hall Primary School?

3. What is the profession of Boggis, Bunce and Bean?

4. Whose parents are killed by an escaped rhinoceros?

5. In Danny, the Champion of the World, Danny’s father tells a story that Roald Dahl later expanded into which novel?

6. What is the fate of Bruno Jenkins?

7. Which story recounts Mr Hoppy’s deceitful wooing of Mrs Silver?

8. As what do the characters The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me work?

9. In which novel do the Vermicious Knids invade Space Hotel USA?

10. A 2020 toxicology report in the British Medical Journal concluded that, if combined and ingested as described, the 34 ingredients of what would cause “vomiting, kidney injury, convulsions” and that “the most likely clinical outcome would be death”?

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The World of Roald Dahl Answers

1. Worms
2. Miss Trunchball throws her by her pigtails
3. Farmers
4. James (Henry Trotter)
5. The BFG
6. He is turned into a mouse
7. Esio Trot
8. Window Cleaners
9. Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
10. George’s Marvellous Medicine

No way! Roald Dahl invented over 250 new words in his novels. The greatest number of these appear in the BFG.

Books for Young People Quiz Questions and Answers

From angsty teen novels to prized classics for kids, there are entire genres perfectly suited to young readers, to help spark their imagination, or help them escape into a literary world. In this penultimate round of our book trivia series, let’s explore the works that fill young people with wonder.

1. What is the first book in the series that features The Silver Chair and The Horse and His Boy?

2. Who created the teenage spy character, Alex Rider?

3. What is the name of the third book in the His Dark Materials trilogy?

4. What is the name of the protagonist in Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief and other subsequent books in The Olympians series?

5. Which 1935 American novel begins with Pa Ingalls and family moving out of the ‘House in the Big Woods’?

6. Whose journal was first published with the title Het Achterhuis (The Back House)?

7. New Moon and Eclipse are two of the novels in which series by Stephenie Meyer?

8. Which district is home to Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games?

9. Which character is the narrator of the novel A Series of Unfortunate Events?

10. What sort of creature is Joey in a 1982 Michael Morpurgo novel?

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Books for Young People Quiz Answers

1. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
2. Anthony Horowitz
3. The Amber Spyglass
4. Percy Jackson
5. Little House on the Prairie
6. Anne Frank
7. Twilight
8. District 12
9. Lemony Snicket
10. A horse

Literary Cluedo Quiz Questions and Answers

Keen on books but also board games? Well welcome to the ultimate final round where we fuse our own penchant for puzzles with our love of books. It’s our literary-inspired Cluedo round! Simply identify the murder victim when we give you the perpetrator, the weapon or manner of death and the location.

1. Dorothy; her house; the Land of Oz.

2. Paris; an arrow to the heel; Troy.

3. Tybalt; a sword; streets of Verona.

4. Squirrels; thrown down a waste chute; Mr. Wonka’s factory.

5. Little Finger and Olenna Tyrell; poison; his wedding to Margaery.

6. Roger; a giant rock; the island.

7. Bill Sikes; beaten; her bed.

8. Mersault; shot; the beach.

9. Christopher Boone’s father; a garden fork; Mrs Shears’ garden.

10. A crafty fox; gobbled up; the riverbank (pursued by the baker, his wife, a boy and various animals).

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Literary Cluedo Quiz Answers

1. The Wicked Witch of the East
2. Achilles
3. Mercutio
4. Veruca Salt
5. Joffrey Baratheon
6. Piggy
7. Nancy
8. The Arab (the brother of Raymond’s mistress)
9. (Wellington) the dog
10. The Gingerbread Man

Interesting Fact: The Gingerbread Man fairy tale was popularised in the USA in the 19th century, but has its origins in Europe, where a similar story was told featuring a runaway pancake.

So, what did you think of our books quiz? Did you (or your participants) learn something new? Let us know what you thought, or if we’ve got something wrong by dropping us a comment below!

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