Q: Chapter Twenty-Four: Troston

I doubt if the name of this small Suffolk village, remote from towns and railroads, will have any literary associations for the reader, unless he be a person of exceptionally good memory, who has taken a special interest in the minor poets of the last century; or that it would help him if I add the names of Honington and Sapiston, two other small villages a couple of miles from Troston, with the slow sedgy Little Ouse, or a branch of it, flowing between them. Yet Honington was the birthplace of Robert Bloomfield, known as "the Suffolk poet" in the early part of the last century (although Crabbe was living then and was great, as he is becoming again after many years); while at Sapiston, the rustic village on the other side of the old stone bridge, he acquired that love of nature and intimate knowledge of farm life and work which came out later in his Farmer's Boy. Finally, Troston, the little village in which I write, was the home of Capel Lofft, a person of importance in his day, who discovered Bloomfield, found a publisher for his poems, and boomed it with amazing success.

I dare say it will only provoke a smile of amusement in readers of literary taste when I confess that Bloomfield's memory is dear to me; that only because of this feeling for the forgotten rustic who wrote rhymes I am now here, strolling about in the shade of the venerable trees in Troston Park-the selfsame trees which the somewhat fantastic Capel knew in his day as "Homer," "Sophocles," "Virgil," "Milton," and by other names, calling each old oak, elm, ash, and chestnut after one of the immortals.

Answer the following questions:
1. Where was Robert Bloomfield born?
2. How did he feel about nature?
3. How far is Sapiston from Troston?
4. What waterway ran between the towns?
5. What was Bloomfield's nickname?
6. What kind of bridge led to Sapiston?
7. What work did Bloomfield publish later?
8. Did his poems do well?
9. Who discovered him?
10. Is Sapiston near a railroad?
11. Was Bloomfield a major poet?
12. Where was Capel from?
A: 1. Honington
2. love of nature
3. a couple of miles from Troston
4. Little Ouse
5. "the Suffolk poet"
6. old stone bridge
7. Farmer's Boy
8. amazing success
9. Capel Lofft
10. unknown
11. amazing success
12. Troston
Q: (CNN) -- Pour yourself a cold martini, make sure it's extra dry, put some classic jazz on the stereo, a mournful saxophone is a must, and settle in with one of the best-reviewed novels of the year, "Rules of Civility."

Written by first-time novelist Amor Towles, a principal at a Manhattan investment firm, the book has shot up the best-seller charts and is drawing rave reviews from critics. It's a nostalgic love letter to New York of the late '30s, a novel of manners with lofty aspirations that evokes some of the classics of American literature.

The story unfolds largely in flashback, set on New Year's Eve in Manhattan 1937. The Jazz Age is over, the Depression in its final days, World War II just over the horizon. At its outset, there is a budding love triangle between Katey Kontent, that's "kon-tent, like the state of being"; her boardinghouse roommate, Eve; and a handsome banker, Theodore "Tinker" Grey, but an unexpected accident sends the story in a more serious direction.

Katey is the narrator and the wry heart of this novel. She's a young woman of "poise and purpose." Brooklyn-born, the daughter of immigrant laborers, she works in a Wall Street secretarial pool though aspires to much more.

Alongside a supporting cast with WASPy nicknames like Dicky, Bitsy and Peaches, Katey navigates her way through Manhattan jazz clubs and Long Island cocktail parties and into the upper echelons of New York society.

The novel takes its title from young George Washington's "Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation"; you'll find all 110 of them in the novel's appendix. These rules are described as "a do-it-yourself charm school. A sort of How to Win Friends and Influence People 150 years ahead of its time."

Answer the following questions:
1. Where does Amor Towles work?
2. Where?
3. Has he written a book?
4. What's the name of it?
5. Is it his first?
6. What is he now considered?
7. Who narrates the story?
8. Is that an old woman?
9. What is she?
10. Where does she work?
11. As what?
12. What were her parents?
13. Were they born in New York?
14. What were they?
15. Where is Kathy born?
16. Where is the book set?
17. When?
18. Is it a holiday?
19. Which one?
20. Is there a love triangle?
A:
1. an investment firm
2. Manhattan
3. yes
4. "Rules of Civility"
5. yes
6. a novelist
7. Katey
8. no
9. a young woman
10. Wall Street
11. a secretary
12. laborers
13. no
14. immigrants
15. Brooklyn
16. Manhattan
17. 1937
18. yes
19. New Year's Eve
20. yes