The quiz that does it by the book...
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- Play along with the teams (Answers at foot of page)
Kirsty Wark chairs the second series of the quiz that aims to find out who knows their Chaucer from their chick lit and their Wuthering Heights from their Malory Towers.
Teams of celebrities drawn from the world of literature, journalism and politics do battle over seven testing rounds. They'll be asked to name famous novels from extracts alone, or identify authors from recordings of them reading their own works. They'll also have to decipher which books are being referred to in a series of fiendishly cunning clues.
Perhaps the biggest challenge facing them is naming as many titles from a specific author as they can in 30 seconds - it might be the Odes of John Keats or the novels of Ernest Hemingway. But no matter how well or how badly either team has done, everything can change in the quick-fire head-to-head final round.
Each week this light-hearted test of literary know-how sees two teams of two players fighting for a spot in the semi-finals and then, after seven weeks, victory in the grand final. And as befitting such book lovers, aside from the glory of winning, the prize on offer for the series champions is a fine edition of one of their favourite books.
CREDITS
- Presenter... Kirsty Wark
- Director... Sue McMahon
- Producer... Irene Daniels
- Executive producer... Gilly Hall
- Executive producer... Peter Gwyn
Related Links
- Newsnight Review
- The Culture Show
- Imagine
- UK reading groups
- UK literary festivals
- Bartleby.com – fiction online
Visit the BBC Arts books site for a wealth of information on writing, poetry and literature
ANSWERS
- William Wordsworth, Dracula, Iris Murdoch,
- The Crucible, Lewis Carroll, Papillon,
- Franz Kafka, A Farewell To Arms
© MMIX
In the final, journalist and novelist Wendy Holden and writer and food critic Giles Coren fight it out with poetry expert Daisy Goodwin and journalist David Aaronovitch. As well as the champions being crowned, the teams find out what drastic measures Doris Lessing took to illustrate the plight of new authors in 1984 and which children's author referred to one of his books as 'Die Hard – with fairies'.
First broadcast Monday 5 May 2008 7.00pm on BBC Four
In the second semi-final, television executive and poetry expert Daisy Goodwin and journalist and broadcaster David Aaronovitch take on author and TV critic James Delingpole and Sunday Times journalist India Knight. The teams discover which writer created the fictional doctors Snoddy, Cameron and Finlay, and which novelist edited the periodical that Mrs Gaskell's Cranford stories first appeared in.
First broadcast Monday 28 April 2008 8.30pm on BBC Four