It was the Mostly Bookbrains litquiznight last night. As questionmaster, if I say so myself, it went really well. We had a packed house and everyone seemed to have fun. Mark from Mostly Books was a brilliant help as scorer, Ali from the shop made a wonderful trophy – see it here. As any proceeds from the quiz were being donated to charity, we were grateful to The Manor Prep School who let us use the big hall for free, and hopefully we raised a fair amount of money for Helen & Douglas House hospice for children in Oxford (over £200).
It’s always fun to go over the answer sheets after the quiz and see some of the fun wrong answers; I’d like to share a few with you …
In our picture round of book covers, very few got Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat – the most popular wrong answer was Perfume by Patrick Suskind strangely!- Despite me not even trying a Scottish accent, (it would have been awful), almost everyone got Trainspotting in the First Lines round – “The sweat wis lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling.”
- In our round where teams had to name the books that various characters appeared in, we gave them Rob’s five girlfriends from High Fidelity by Nick Hornby – one enterprising team put down ‘The Telephone Directory’ as their answer.
- Likewise, when asked ‘Where is Howards End?’ according to the title of Susan Hill’s new book, someone put ‘in Surrey’, not ‘on the landing’. (Actually the real house it was based on is just outside Stevenage in Hertfordshire near where I used to live ten years ago.)
- When asked what was the title of Delia Smith’s first cookery book, published in 1971 which she revised in 2008, only one team got that one – from the others we got virtually all of Delia’s catalogue except How to Cheat at Cooking.
It was lovely to meet Simon from Stuck in a book too, it’s great to put a face to a name. Fittingly perhaps, a team from one of the Book Groups who meet at Mostly Books won the inaugural MBookbrains quiz – I say inaugural, because I think we might do it all again next year.
I hope we do do the quiz again – it was great fun! Well done you on an incredible – and taxing! – range of questions.Helen
It was a great evening! And you did a brilliant job, both writing and asking the questions.Can't wait for the next one…
Sounds a good evening. Well done.
Helen – I hope the questions weren't too difficult. Anna – Well done that winning team.I think next year we won't have the jumbo sheet, and try to get more socialising done during the interval – unless everyone liked that bit ….
Sounds like so much fun! Amusing answers. I would have answered the How to Eat question as I have the book :).
BTW – if anyone is interested in my Lit Quiz – I'd consider renting it out for a donation to charity. I'm afraid I don't come with it though.
You did such a brilliant job Annabel and the questions were pitched just right. The shop has been full of folks asking if we plan to do another one, because they had such a great time.But I have to admit to being mightily relieved it's over. Because if our team had come anything below halfway and I'd be up for the sack!And I got How to Eat, so I am allowed to be a teeny weeny bit smug.
Thanks very much from an Abingdon book group who came third… we had a great time and good questions and picture rounds!!We'd love to do it again.
It sounds as though you had a great evening. I would have been one of the few to get Nigella's book – it is one of my most used!Great questions!
It's strange – there were 2 cooking related questions in the whole quiz and they were the ones which caused the most trouble!