About Books and Authors
Books and authors is the most straightforward topic in general knowledge: a list of pairings, each with one settled answer. The books here are the ones that recur in examination lists, and no author appears twice, so every question has one answer and no more.
What you need to understand
- The Indian writers in English are the easiest group to start with: R. K. Narayan and Malgudi, Mulk Raj Anand and Coolie, Salman Rushdie and Midnight's Children, and Arundhati Roy and The God of Small Things.
- The Bengali writers come next: Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee with Anandmath, and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay with Devdas; Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay wrote Pather Panchali.
- The Hindi writers include Munshi Premchand with Godaan and Gaban, Phanishwar Nath Renu with Maila Anchal, and Shrilal Shukla with Raag Darbari.
- The political and autobiographical books are asked about often: Nehru's Discovery of India, Gandhi's My Experiments with Truth, Kalam's Wings of Fire and Azad's India Wins Freedom.
- The nineteenth century English novelists are grouped by their best-known books: Dickens with Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities, the Brontes with Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and Jane Austen with Pride and Prejudice.
- The Russian novelists are a small group: Tolstoy with War and Peace and Dostoevsky with Crime and Punishment.
- The French and German classics run from Hugo's Les Miserables to Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Kafka's The Trial.
- The scientific and philosophical books are asked as often as the novels: Darwin's Origin of Species, Smith's Wealth of Nations, Marx's Das Kapital, Plato's Republic and Machiavelli's The Prince.
- The modern science writing is a group of its own: Hawking's A Brief History of Time, Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, Watson's The Double Helix and Carson's Silent Spring.
- Two books of the same author can both be asked, and this is where candidates slip. Dickens and Orwell each have two entries here, and the questions distinguish between them by the title.
- Where two authors wrote one book together, the answer names the pair: Freedom at Midnight is by Lapierre and Collins.
- Translations are recorded by the author rather than the translator, since the questions ask who wrote the work.
- Nothing here is a recent book. The list is deliberately made of works whose authorship will not change and which examinations have asked about for years.
How to work through these questions
- Group the list by language and period. The Indian writers in English, the Bengali and Hindi writers, the English novelists and the Russian novelists are four separate lists, and each is short.
- Learn the author with the one title you are surest of, and let the others follow. Most people know one thing by Dickens; the second title is easier once the first is fixed.
- For the political books, learn the author with the period he wrote about. Nehru, Gandhi and Azad belong to the freedom movement, which places them together.
- Where a title is also a phrase in common use, as with Wings of Fire or Silent Spring, the author is usually the person the phrase is associated with.
- If two options are by the same author, the question is testing which of the two wrote this title, and the other is the distractor.
- Use the title's language or subject as a first cut. A book called Das Kapital is unlikely to be by an English novelist.
Mistakes that cost marks
- Giving Tagore for Anandmath, which is by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee.
- Confusing Godaan, by Premchand, with Maila Anchal, by Phanishwar Nath Renu.
- Mixing up Oliver Twist with A Tale of Two Cities, both by Dickens, when the question names one of them.
- Giving Orwell for Animal Farm when the question asks about Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the reverse.
- Attributing The Origin of Species to anybody but Darwin, or The Wealth of Nations to anybody but Adam Smith.
- Mixing up The Republic of Plato with The Prince of Machiavelli, the two political classics most often confused.
- Crediting Gitanjali to Bankim Chandra; it is Tagore's, and the confusion arises because both wrote in Bengali.
- Giving only one name where the book was written by two, as with Freedom at Midnight.
Worked example
Who wrote Discovery of India?
- The title is about India and was written during the freedom movement, so it belongs to the group of political and autobiographical books.
- That group holds Nehru's Discovery of India, Gandhi's My Experiments with Truth, Kalam's Wings of Fire and Azad's India Wins Freedom.
- The book was written in prison at Ahmednagar between 1942 and 1946, which places it with the freedom movement rather than with a later writer.
- The author is Jawaharlal Nehru.
Answer: Jawaharlal Nehru
Practice questions with answers
A few Books and Authors questions with the full solution shown, so you can see
how the method is applied before you attempt the timed set.
Question 1
Who wrote Playing It My Way?
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A
Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins
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B
Plato
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C
George Bernard Shaw
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D
Sachin Tendulkar
Answer: Option D — with explanation
Playing It My Way was written by Sachin Tendulkar.
Group the list by language and period - the Sanskrit and Bengali writers together, the nineteenth century English novelists together, and the Indian writers in English together - and the pairs become much easier to hold.
Common mistakes
- this author wrote a different book: Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins
- this author wrote a different book: Plato
- this author wrote a different book: George Bernard Shaw
Question 2
My Experiments with Truth was written by which of these?
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A
William Shakespeare
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B
Mahatma Gandhi
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C
Rabindranath Tagore
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D
Ernest Hemingway
Answer: Option B — with explanation
My Experiments with Truth was written by Mahatma Gandhi.
Group the list by language and period - the Sanskrit and Bengali writers together, the nineteenth century English novelists together, and the Indian writers in English together - and the pairs become much easier to hold.
Common mistakes
- this author wrote a different book: Ernest Hemingway
- this author wrote a different book: Rabindranath Tagore
- this author wrote a different book: William Shakespeare
Question 3
Which of these authors wrote The Social Contract?
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A
Shrilal Shukla
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B
Dante Alighieri
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C
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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D
Jane Austen
Answer: Option C — with explanation
The Social Contract was written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Group the list by language and period - the Sanskrit and Bengali writers together, the nineteenth century English novelists together, and the Indian writers in English together - and the pairs become much easier to hold.
Common mistakes
- this author wrote a different book: Shrilal Shukla
- this author wrote a different book: Jane Austen
- this author wrote a different book: Dante Alighieri
Question 4
Which of these authors wrote Don Quixote?
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A
Chinua Achebe
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B
Miguel de Cervantes
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C
R. K. Narayan
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D
T. S. Eliot
Answer: Option B — with explanation
Don Quixote was written by Miguel de Cervantes.
Group the list by language and period - the Sanskrit and Bengali writers together, the nineteenth century English novelists together, and the Indian writers in English together - and the pairs become much easier to hold.
Common mistakes
- this author wrote a different book: R. K. Narayan
- this author wrote a different book: Chinua Achebe
- this author wrote a different book: T. S. Eliot
Question 5
Midnight's Children is the work of which of these authors?
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A
Salman Rushdie
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B
Charles Darwin
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C
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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D
Chinua Achebe
Answer: Option A — with explanation
Midnight's Children was written by Salman Rushdie.
Group the list by language and period - the Sanskrit and Bengali writers together, the nineteenth century English novelists together, and the Indian writers in English together - and the pairs become much easier to hold.
Common mistakes
- this author wrote a different book: Charles Darwin
- this author wrote a different book: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- this author wrote a different book: Chinua Achebe
Frequently asked questions
How many books do I need to know?
A list of about a hundred covers what papers ask, and it is the same hundred year after year. Learning them in groups by language and period is much easier than one long list.
Should I learn the translators of Indian classics?
The questions almost always ask for the author, because the author is the settled fact. Translations differ and would make an unreliable question.
Which books are asked most?
The political and scientific ones: Discovery of India, My Experiments with Truth, Wings of Fire, The Origin of Species and The Wealth of Nations appear again and again, as do the standard English novels.
What if two authors have similar names?
The table keeps one book to an author, and the options to a question are authors of other books in the list, so the confusion the question tests is between two real pairings rather than between similar spellings.
Is this topic worth the time?
It is one of the quickest returns in general knowledge. The list is finite, the answers do not change, and two or three questions come from it in most papers.
