Sunday, November 19, 2006
 
Book Report: The Mystery Reader's Quiz Book by Aneta Corsaut, Muff Singer, and Robert Wagner (1981)
Well. I bought this book cheaply at a book fair because I was already buying dozens of other books, so what could this one hurt? My pride, my friends, my pride.

For this book offers a hundred some pages of quizzes that cover the field of crime fiction mostly of the twentieth century, and as a trivia-lover, I fell very, very short.

I thought I was doing all right on the authors I know well. A couple of questions touched on the 87th Precinct series by Ed McBain. A couple on the Lew Archer books by Ross MacDonald. I even answered correctly a number of questions about Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series, some of which I read in high school. But there's a great number of books, authors, and series in classical and frankly just 20th century fiction that I didn't get around to reading yet, although there's plenty of it to be read in the Noggle Library.

My final humbling came at the hands of a simple quiz that just wanted me to get the colors right in the titles of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series. It's been a year since I last touched one of these books, and some many more for most. I got a couple right--I can even see the cover for Free Fall in Crimson in my mind's eye since I just organized some of the read shelves this year, but ultimately, I fell very short. For an author whose books I really enjoyed and have, in several instances, read more than once.

Forget it, the Northside Mind Flayers trivia night team is no more, for I cannot even respect myself for my performance with this book.

But it was a quick browse, like a phone book. Only occasionally did my eyes fall upon a familiar name. The rest of the time I was turning pages without comprehension.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:49 PM
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To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."