Books of 2021 Super Quiz

“Silverview” is John le Carré’s 26th and last completed novel. The novel revolves around Julian Lawndsley, who, at 33, has dropped out of the financial rat race in London to open a bookstore in a small seaside town in East Anglia.

Theodor Seuss Geisel adopted the name "Dr. Seuss" as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College and a graduate student at Lincoln College, Oxford. He added the "Dr." to his pen name because his father wanted him to practice medicine.

Which Dr. Seuss books will no longer be published?

On Dr. Seuss's birthday, March 2, 2021, which is non-coincidentally National Read Across America Day, the company that preserves the author's legacy announced it would no longer publish  Six of Dr. Seuss's books because of racially insensitive imagery. The six children's titles are If I Ran the Zoo, Scrambled Eggs Super, McElligot's Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, The Cat's Quizzer and the 1958 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award winner And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, in which a character described as Chinese has two lines for eyes, carries chopsticks and a bowl of rice, and wears traditional Japanese-style shoes.

Annie Leibovitz’s new book “Wonderland” is an anthology of fashion images shot mainly for Vogue magazine. The book, which arrives on Nov. 17, is a nod to Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

“State of Terror” is a thriller co-written by Hillary Clinton and bestselling crime novelist Louise Penny. The main character is a new US Secretary of State caught up in an international terrorist plot involving nuclear weapons and a Trump-like president.

Huma Abedin, 45, has been serving as a close aide to Hillary Clinton since she began working as an intern in the White House in 1996 - 25 years ago.

What’s in Abedin’s new book?

Huma Abedin released her memoir, “Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds,” on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021. In just under 500 pages, Abedin, born in Michigan to Muslim academics from India and Pakistan and mainly raised in Saudi Arabia, tells the story of her family, her many years with Hillary Clinton, and her ongoing divorce process from former New York congressman Anthony Weiner, a convicted sex offender.

The title of Will Smith’s 2021 memoir is “Will.”

What’s in Will Smith’s autobiography?

Written with Mark Manson, Will Smith describes in his new book a childhood in the Wynnefield neighborhood of West Philadelphia, with a hard-drinking abusive father and an office and then school administrator abused mother. He then describes the early days of the rap scene, concluding with his present-day stardom.

Kunta Kinte is a character in the 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley. Haley based Kunta Kinte on one of his ancestors: a Gambian man born in 1750, enslaved and taken to America, who died in 1822. “Roots” earned Haley a Pulitzer Prize and was turned into a TV miniseries watched by a record-setting 130 million people in 1977.

Alex Haley News Fact

On the occasion of his 100th birthday, Alex Haley’s legacy is being invoked at the renovated Alex Haley Museum and Interpretive Center, which opened Friday, Aug 13, 2021. Visitors are welcome to view a short documentary film, visit a galley that includes a life-size replica of a slave ship, and tour the boyhood home of Alex Haley.

Alan Cumming's 2014 best seller's title was Not My Father's Son and focused on his earlier life.

What's in the new Alan Cumming memoir?

The story opens in 1994 as his nearly eight-year marriage to the English actor Hilary Lyon is dissolving and ends with Cumming's second marriage to the American illustrator Grant Shaffer. In between, Cumming comes to terms with his painful childhood, described in his previous memoir.

Did Alan Cumming use Ecstasy?

Cumming described in the book a period in his life when he used Ecstasy, including on the night he won a Tony Award for "Cabaret." According to him, the drug was a form of "self-prescribed anti-anxiety medication... and it worked." Watch Alan Cumming's interview on CBS Mornings.

"The Very Hungry Caterpillar" is a children's picture book designed, illustrated, and written by Eric Carle. On Saturday, the hungry caterpillar eats a piece of chocolate cake, an ice-cream cone, a pickle, a slice of Swiss cheese, a slice of salami, a lollipop, a piece of cherry pie, a sausage, a cupcake, and a slice of watermelon. It's on Monday that he eats an apple.

 "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" 2021 fact

Eric Carle, the beloved children's author/illustrator behind "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and other works, has died Sunday, May 23, 2021, at age 91. "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," published in 1969, has sold 40 million copies and has been translated into 60 languages.

“V for Vendetta” and “Watchmen” were authored by English writer Alan Moore, who some regard as the best comics writer in the English language.

What’s new?

Alan Moore signed a deal with Bloomsbury for the story collection “Illuminations” and a five-volume fantasy series, “Long London.” In a statement Monday, May 3, 2021, Moore said he was “bursting with fiction, bursting with prose” and thanked his publisher for its commitment to “expanding the empire of the word.”

When are the new Alan Moore books coming out?

Moore’s “Illuminations” is scheduled for fall 2022 and the first volume of “Long London” comes out in 2024.

Among the celebrities that Katie Couric sights in her new memoir "Going There", is Prince Harry, who Couric writes that the smell of cigarettes and alcohol seemed to "ooze from every pore" in his body. The two met at a polo match in Brazil during what she describes as his "wild-oats sowing phase."

Who else gets dissed by Couric in Going There?

In her new book, Katie Couric describes how Prince Andrew cozied up to Jeffrey Epstein at a bizarre dinner at his New York mansion, which she calls "Eyes Wide Shut with a twist - creepy chandeliers and body-part art." She recalls a 15-minute date with Michael Jackson, whose hand felt like a "dead fish" when she shook it. She also says she didn't realize the extent to which her former Today co-host, Matt Lauer, committed sexual misconduct at work.

During a virtual celebration at Coventry Cathedral, David Diop has become the first French writer to win the International Booker Prize, judges announced on Wednesday, May 4, 2021. The International Booker Award is awarded every year for a single book translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland.

Bonus Fact:

David Diop's Senegalese great-grandfather's experiences in World War I inspired his winning novel, At Night All Blood is Black. Diop and the book's translator - US author and poet Anna Moschovakis will split the £50,000 prize between them.

The Pulitzer-winning historical novel "The Night Watchman" follows a native American tribal chairman who is on a mission to defeat a congressional bill to terminate the tribe. Author Louise Erdrich said its inspiration was her maternal grandfather's life.

Pulitzer 2021 Fact:

Pulitzer Prizes for best work in journalism and the arts in 2020 were handed Friday, June 11, 2021. Marcia Chatelain's "Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America" won for history, "The Night Watchman," by Louise Erdrich, won for fiction, "The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X," by Les Payne and Tamara Payne, won for biography, and "Postcolonial Love Poem," by Natalie Diaz, took the Pulitzer for poetry. See the complete Pulitzer prize winner list.

Questlove is a founding member of The Roots, the Philadelphia hip-hop group that peaked in the 1990s and now serves as the house band for “The Tonight Show.”

What’s the subject of Questlove’s new book?

“Music Is History,” Questlove’s latest book, was written with the novelist and journalist Ben Greenman. It examines why some works of art become a part of the historical record while others fade from view.

The Bench is the title of Meghan Markle's new children's book. Markle released her book published by Random House Children's Books on June 11, 2021.

What inspired Meghan Markle's first children's book?

The inspiration for the book came from Markle's poem to her husband, Prince Harry, on his first Father's Day as a dad to son Archie.

Oscar and Grammy award-winning actor Jamie Foxx, 53, shares his parenting lessons in his new book “Act Like You Got Some Sense: And Other Things My Daughters Taught Me” from Grand Central Publishing. Foxx has two daughters, Corinne, now 27, an actor and producer, and 13-year-old Anelise.