It started snowing last night around midnight and it is now past noon the next day. We are all bundled up safe and snug in our house and my thoughts turn to favorite things to do when I don't want to leave my home. And of course the number one entertainment for a winter afternoon is reading. I love to read and like my sister Shelley, and probably all of you, I will read anything, anywhere. So it is good to be surrounded by many good books. I know that we have read lots of books and we hope to add to that number in a serious way. So Rachel and I were sitting in the kitchen after lunch and decided we would devise some literary quizzes that I hope will amuse you in between the books you're reading and yes, I recognize that we have other demands on our time, such as jobs, children, and feeding our families, but take little time and check out these quizzes. The first one is from the internet and is rather silly, but easy.


The premise of this first quiz is that the first line of a famous book has been translated into a foreign language and then translated again and then finally translated back into English. See if you can figure out what book they are referencing.


"Is one universally recognized truth, that one that a single man in possession of good fortune must be within wishes of one moglie."
Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Count of Monte Cristo, or Silas Marner

"This is the best, it is the worse time; this is a wisdom, it's age is the stupid age."
A Tale of Two Cities, The Three Musketeers, A Journal of the Plague Years or, Jane Eyre

"Temperature has hit the day which ninety she arrives."
The Stepford Wives, Valley of the Dolls, Empire of the Sun, or Rose Madder

"Was not the possibility of taking interest for a single day line there."
Wuthering Heights, Moll Flanders, Don Quixote, orJane Eyre

"My name to align is therefore very famous in annotations or records to Newgate and in the Old Bailey and there are some things of such consequence still that it depends here, than is not previewed , that I would have to establish my name, or the customer of my family to this job."

A Journal of the Plague Year, Moll Flanders, Vanity Fair, or David Copperfield


"Dashwood family had been stabilized for a long time in Su Kesai Si."
Sense and Sensibility, Orlando , Silas Marner, or Middlemarch


"My father's name is Pirrip, with mine christian first name Philip, my baby tongue can make naming any not to be long or explicitly to compare the micro-nucleus."
Daniel Deronda, Great Expectations, To the Lighthouse, or The Mill on the Floss


"Arab League Li Si starts to obtain extremely tiredly sits facing each other by her sisters and to has any in the bank not to do; She twelve time peeped entered the book wchih she the sisters read but it didinot have the picture or the conversation in it "and what was to the book use," idea Arab League Li Si, "does not have the picture or the conversation?"."
Alice in Wonderland, The Odessa Files, Topaz, or The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe


Ding-Dong front century in it's several years old, with in sunshiney morning in June, there drove by Pinkerton Academy had decided young lady the giant steel gate was young lady, in the Chiswick shopping center, a big family trained, with two obese horses in burning harness, drove by an obese horse-cart in a three-corned hat and the vacation."
Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, Madeline, or The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie


The villagers of Little Hangleton still called the house of cribà although it had been many years, since the family had lived on the sieve there."
The Magicians Nephew, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Lilith, or Conrad, the Factory Boy

Here is another quiz for you. Can you identify these famous books and plays by their subtitles?

In the early 19th century Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a play, "Prometheus Unbound: A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts", and his wife Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, wrote a novel subtitled "The Modern Prometheus", published in 1818. What was the main title of Mary's novel?
Dracula, VanHelsing, Frankenstein, or Victor

The central character in this Victorian novel is the heroine, narrator, and title character. When it was first published, the novel was subtitled "An Autobiography" and Currer Bell was credited as being the editor, rather than the author. Which novel is it?
Agnes Grey, Shirley, Emma, or Jane Eyre

Which controversial anti-slavery novel was subtitled "Life Among the Lowly"?
Huckleberry Finn, Roots, Black Like Me, or Uncle Tom's Cabin

Which Oscar Wilde play is subtitled "A Play About a Good Woman"?
An Ideal Husband, Lady Windemere's Fan, The Importance of Being Earnest, or A Woman of No Importance

This novel was subtitled "Provincial Life"when it was first published in 1857. Its author and publisher were prosecuted for "violation of of public morals". Which novel was it?
Fanny Hill, Lolita, Madame Bovary, or Tom Jones

Which of the following novels has the subtitle A Study of Provincial Life", and was written by a woman using a masculine pen name?
Middlemarch, Indiana, Agnes, or Grey Villette

Whose biography is entitled "A King's Story" , The Memoirs of the Duke of Windsor? George IV, EdwardVII, Edward VIII, or George V

"There and Back Again" involves a journey which begins and ends at "The Hill"
The Hobbit, The Realm of the Gods, Out of the Silent Planet, or The Forbidden Tower

Which of the following novels, set in France during thr 1830's, has TWO subtitles?
Les Miserables, The Plague, The Red and the Black, or Madame Bovary

Which of Shakespeare's comedies has the subtitle "What You Will"?
Much Ado About Nothing, Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night, or As You Like It


(Rachel's Questions- they are probably a bit harder than moms' mostly because I doubt that any of you have read the same books I have. If anyone gets them all right, they get a digital cookie!)

1) What is the name of "The Woman" from Sherlock Holmes; The Scandal in Bohemia?


2)What is the inner name of Paul Mau'Dib?


3)What are the names of the two main Countries from "The Princess Bride"?


4)What is the name of the ship that houses the Infinite Improbability Drive?


5)What is the Prequel to the Lord of the Rings (NOT The Hobbit!) ?


Tell us what your top five favorite books of the last few years have been. Let's pass along the good reads.
Some of my of my favorite books have been Outliers, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Lindsey Davis Ancient Roman Mysteries Series, (the main character is Marcus Didius Falco), Anne Perry mysteries and Ellis Peter Brother Cadfael mysteries.

This is Rachel's list, not in any particular order; The Princess of Mars; Freedoms Landing, Abarat; The Ear, the Eye and the Arm; the Weird of the White Wolf.


The weatherman tells us we are getting more snow tonight and tomorrow so I will be snuggled down in my blankets reading and I hope that you can find some time to read an old favorite or something new. Tell us all about your favorite reads. Oh I am also reading the Book of Mormon before the Relief Society birthday in March. Didn't want you to think I was slipping.