Question: Which well-known short story about time travel by Ray Bradbury is a fictional exploration of the 'butterfly effect' of Chaos theory?
Answer: A Sound of Thunder

Question: The 2000 film Finding Forrester in which Sean Connery plays a reclusive author was loosely based on the life of which person who passed away in 2010?
Answer: J. D. Salinger

Question: Which 1939 American play takes place in Harry Hopes' saloon and starts with the scene where everyone is waiting for 'Hickey' to show up?
Answer: The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill

Question: San Jose State University in the US has an annual fiction contest for bad writing named for which 19th century writer known for his hyperbolic prose?
Answer: Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873)

Question: Which classic Middle Eastern story of star-crossed lovers is based on the real story of a young man called Qays ibn al-Mullawah and has achieved legendary status in the Islamic world?
Answer: Layla and Majnun

Question: Which 1903 book by Erskine Childers that is still enjoyed for its accurate portrayal of inland sailing was credited by Winston Churchill as a major reason for the establishment of naval bases in the UK?
Answer: The Riddle of the Sands

Question: Fans of Russian Literature who cannot read the originals in Russian ought to be thankful to Constance Garnett. Why?
Answer: She was an English translator whose translations of nineteenth-century Russian classics introduced them on a wide basis to the English public.

Question: Mark Twain's ridiculing of chivalry in his story A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is considered as specifically targeting whose books?
Answer: Walter Scott

Question: In Dante's Divine Comedy, if Hell is divided into 9 circles and Paradise into 9 spheres, what is divided into 7 terraces?
Answer: Purgatory

Question: In the Indiana Jones series of novels, Indiana loses his virginity to which real life spy?
Answer: Mata Hari

Question: After William Shakespeare, who is the most frequently quoted writer in the English language with phrases like "Theirs not to reason why,/Theirs but to do and die"?
Answer: Alfred Tennyson

Question: Baden-Powell used themes from which two books in setting up the Scouting movement?
Answer: The Jungle Book and Kim

Question: In the days of Haroun al-Rashid, Caliph of Baghdad, a poor porter pauses to rest on a bench outside the gate of a rich merchant's house, where he complains to Allah about the injustice of a world which allows the rich to live in ease while he must toil and yet remain poor. The owner of the house hears this, and sends for the porter, and it is found they are both named ___. The rich ___ tells the poor ___ that he became wealthy, "by Fortune and Fate," the details of which he will now proceed to relate. What magnificent adventures follow?
Answer: Stories of Sindbad

Question: Karataka and Damanaka are the names of two jackals that are retainers to a lion king. Their lively adventures as well as the stories they tell one another make up nearly half of which classic ancient Sanskrit work?
Answer: The Panchatantra

Question: Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha are prominent characters in which controversial literary work that famously attracted a fatwa?
Answer: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

Question: It has become almost customary for musicians from a particular country to play the duduk to commemorate a tragedy of 1915. Which country?
Answer: Armenia (the genocide)

Question: The name of what genre has its origin in what producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz had in their mouths when they discussed music targeting the younger crowd?
Answer: Bubblegum pop

Question: In 1934, a regulation promulgated in a certain country required that when the Horst-Wessel-Lied was sung, what gesture must be performed?
Answer: Hitler salute

Question: While selling what 2007 music release did a website list a question mark where the price would normally be? If a user clicked on it, he would see "It's Up To You" and clicking again would show "It's Really Up To You."
Answer: Radiohead's In Rainbows

Question: Ships of what cruise line use the tune of "When You Wish upon a Star" from Pinnochio as the melody of their horns?
Answer: Disney Cruise

Question: The meeting of George Harrison with whom in 1965 resulted in the introduction of a certain Indian instrument on "Norwegian Wood"?
Answer: Ravi Shankar (sitar)

Question: Whose March 31, 1994 appearance on Late Show with David Letterman resulted in the episode becoming the most censored in American network television talk-show history for obvious reasons?
Answer: Madonna

Question: Who is the American entertainer who shares her name with a West African Empire known for its symbol of Golden Stool?
Answer: Ashanti

Question: Whose Symphony No. 1 was called "Beethoven's Tenth" by conductor Hans von Bülow?
Answer: Brahms'

Question: India's national anthem is written in what language that is also the national language of one of its neighbors?
Answer: Bengali

Question: The song "Seasons of Love" from Rent has become associated with New Years Day with lyrics mentioning "Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes." What is the significance of that number?
Answer: Number of minutes in a (non-leap) year

Question: What album of Sting takes its title from a sonnet he quoted in response to a drunk's query, "How beautiful is the moon?"?
Answer: ...Nothing Like the Sun

Question: During what landmark 1969 event was a 'freak out tent' established for those suffering from the ill-effects of drugs?
Answer: Woodstock

Question: In December 1989, along with "I Fought The Law" by The Clash, what hard rock song was famously used by the US Military to ferret out a hiding Noriega from the Vatican Embassy?
Answer: Van Halen's "Panama"

Question: An aversion therapy called the 'Ludovico technique' from the 1971 classic A Clockwork Orange features which composer's music? Kudos if you can name the piece too.
Answer: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

Question: Composer Philip Glass's 'Portrait Trilogy' of operas consists of Einstein on the Beach, Akhnaten and Satyagraha with the last one focusing on whom?
Answer: Mahatma Gandhi

Question: In 2010 Sony signed a $250 million deal to retain distribution rights to whose works, a fall-out from a 2009 incident?
Answer: Michael Jackson's (1958-2009)

Question: Talking about which of his hits did Eric Clapton say the following? "... It's no good to write a deliberate anti-___ song and hope that it will catch. Because the general thing is that people will be upset by that. It would disturb them to have someone else shoving something down their throat. So the best thing to do is offer something that seems ambiguous ..."
Answer: """Cocaine"" (the missing word is ""drug"")"

Question: Talking about what 1977 rock classic did a band member say that his physics training helped him in designing the "stomp, stomp, clap" section of the song? Get this right or you'd have mud on your face!
Answer: Queen's "We Will Rock You"

Question: When this classical music suite was written in the period of 1914-16, it consisted of seven parts, and not eight, for astrological reasons. When a discovery was made in 1930, the composer was urged to add an eight part but refused. In 2006 the work was said to have became complete again. What are we talking about?
Answer: Planets by Gustav Holst

Question: What is the better known name of Violin Sonata in G minor by Giuseppe Tartini that the composer said was played to him in a dream by Satan himself?
Answer: Devil's Trill sonata

Question: In which country did the dictator Rafael Trujillo promote the merengue style of music/dance into the country's national music?
Answer: Dominican Republic

Question: The titular object fashioned by dwarf Alberich is the focus of what monumental work of music?
Answer: Ring Cycle by Wagner