Why Did I Buy This Book? Read online

  A. Mary Shelley

  2. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

  B. Victor Hugo

  3. Frankenstein

  C. Bram Stoker

  4. The Hunchback of Notre Dame

  D. Ira Levin

  5. The Invisible Man

  E. Robert Louis Stevenson

  6. Rosemary’s Baby

  F. H. G. Wells

  23. Most of the stories in the collected Adventures of Sherlock Holmes were told in the voice of his friend and assistant, Dr. John Watson. Two of the tales, however, were narrated by someone else. Which of the following characters was the other narrator? 1. Sherlock Holmes, himself

  2. His older brother, Mycroft Holmes

  3. His landlady, Mrs. Hudson

  4. Another tenant at 221B Baker Street

  5. Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard

  24. What kind of animals mounted a Bolshevik-style revolution and took charge in George Orwell’s allegorical novel, Animal Farm?

  25. Link the following novels with the sports involved:

  1. For Love of the Game

  A. Tennis

  2. The Harder They Fall

  B. Golf

  3. The Hustler

  C. Baseball

  4. The Legend of Bagger Vance

  D. Boxing

  5. The Tournament

  E. Pool

  History Trivia

  answers on pages 331-333

  1. When Abraham Lincoln opened his Gettysburg Address with the words “Fourscore and seven years ago . . . ,” how many years was he referring to?

  2. What did these presidents have in common? Adams

  Johnson

  Harrison

  Roosevelt

  Bush

  3. Name the only man to serve as both U.S. vice president and president without having been elected to either office.

  4. In what Southern city was Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated on April 4, 1968?

  5. What are the first three words of the U.S. Constitution?

  6. In 1981, president Ronald Reagan appointed the Supreme Court’s first female justice. She served for a quarter of a century until her retirement in 2006. Who is she?

  7. Which were the last two states to enter the Union? When were they admitted?

  8. Identify the American general who was named supreme commander of allied forces in Europe during World War II?

  9. Which of these astronauts was the first American in space? John Glenn

  Alan Shepard

  Neil Armstrong

  10. Who served as president of the Confederate States during the American Civil War?

  11. What three countries were characterized as an “axis of evil” by President George W. Bush in 2001?

  12. For which two European monarchs were the states of Louisiana and Virginia named?

  13. Match the president with the appropriate slogan:

  1. Franklin D. Roosevelt

  A. New Frontier

  2. Harry Truman

  B. Morning in America

  3. John F. Kennedy

  C. New Deal

  4. Lyndon Johnson

  D. Fair Deal

  5. Ronald Reagan

  E. Compassionate Conservatism

  6. George W. Bush

  F. The Great Society

  14. What name was given to the disastrous hurricane that flooded 80 percent of New Orleans in August 2005?

  15. Four presidents of the United States have had first and last names beginning with the same letter. How many can you name?

  16. Charles Lindbergh made the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight in 1927. What was the name of his plane?

  17. In 1970, National Guards fired upon antiwar protesters at Kent State University, killing four students. In what state is Kent State?

  18. Who was the first and only president elected to three consecutive terms?

  19. What international organization, established in 1919 following World War I, served as an early version of the United Nations?

  20. The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, proposed by the First Congress and ratified by the states in 1791, are collectively known by what title?

  21. Match these presidents with their middle names:

  1. Franklin Roosevelt

  A. Milhous

  2. Dwight Eisenhower

  B. Earl

  3. John Kennedy

  C. Rudolph

  4. Lyndon Johnson

  D. Walker

  5. Richard Nixon

  E. Fitzgerald

  6. Gerald Ford

  F. Delano

  7. James Carter

  G. Jefferson

  8. Ronald Reagan

  H. Baines

  9. William Clinton

  I. Wilson

  10. George Bush

  J. David

  22. In 1903, the Wright Brothers went airborne with the first controlled, powered flight in a heavier-than-air craft, ushering in the Age of Flight. Where did they conduct their “flying machine” experiments?

  23. The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to impeach a president only twice in the nation’s history. Both were brought to trial and both acquitted by the U.S. Senate. Name the two Presidents.

  24. What two prominent American sites were struck by terrorist-hijacked commercial jetliners on September 11, 2001?

  25. How many of the thirteen original states can you name?

  Memory Box #2

  Feeling adrift or lost at sea when someone asks you what you did last night? Dive on in to this visual puzzle and revive that memory!

  Take a close look at the images on this page. Give yourself a minute. Then, turn the page and see how many questions you can answer.

  answers on page 333

  1. Were most fish facing left or right?

  2. How many fish did NOT have stripes?

  3. How many scuba divers were there?

  4. What animal was squirting the walrus?

  5. How many clams were there?

  6. Was it noon or afternoon?

  7. Was the wind blowing East or West?

  8. How many anchors were there?

  9. Did the sea anemones have dark or light “faces”?

  10. What kind of shark was in the picture?

  Chapter Three:

  WHAT WAS THAT, AGAIN?

  These puzzlers take the familiar and mix it up so your brain will have to work a little harder to get the right answer. Novel approaches will push your brain to move beyond how it’s been working over time, and will spark your cognitive reserve. Arm yourself against the inevitable slowing that faces us all.

  Dust off your cerebral spell-check and take a crack at finding misspelled wurds. Rearrange words to make a familiar phrase and unscramble some famous and funny quotes.

  In Other Words

  Idioms are commonly known phrases that make their way into our day-to-day speech and thinking. Here are some common sayings that have been rewritten. Can you translate them?

  answers on pages 334-335

  1. Can you identify the following common offer? This nominal American fiscal unit is offered in exchange for personal cerebral activity.

  2. What is this descriptive phrase that might be used to describe Benji? The vociferous nature of his being is far more intense than the physical act of mastication.

  3. This is something Billie Jean King must have said. The sphere has arrived and is contained within your enclosed official recreational area.

  4. What are these two idioms based on a Simon and Garfunkel structure staple. You and I might span the overpass upon reaching that destination.

  Do not ignite the viaducts.

  5. Or so Charles thinks . . . The dwelling of a hominid is a secular architectural stronghold.

  6. Colonel Sanders never does this . . . Poultry calculation prior to emergence from the calcareous covering.

  7. John James Audubon probably agrees with these: A single bipedal, warm-blooded, egg-laying vertebrate in a prehensile grasp has
a double value than when in shrubbery.

  Aves with similar plumage gather in groups.

  8. Can you translate this beastly saying? No glancing into the oral orifice of the donated equine.

  9. What are these corporal proverbs? Maintain intersected manual digits.

  Self-snout slicing? Not so much.

  10. Proverb Dear Abby might have said: Failed amorous activity is preferred to none at all.

  11. From Dancing with the Stars . . . For a sassy Argentine dance, it is required to have a pair of dancers.

  12. True for Ray Charles . . . Passionate adoration is ocular-deficient.

  13. Willard Scott motto: Drizzly precipitation evaporate! Resume activity on an alternative period of sunlight.

  14. Shhhhhh! Gilded is the lack of din.

  15. We’re not talking corn, here: That which holds up the ceiling also possesses aural organs.

  16. Probably not a practical idea: Attack infernos with a combustible heat-producing reaction.

  17. A spelunker’s creed: Illumination appears in faraway channel entries.

  And a spelunker’s nightmare:

  Glowing emanates from within though the habitude seems deserted.

  18. Two for the Gipper: Activity that produces no aches is not productive.

  After a failed primary attempt, endeavor multiple times.

  19. It’s about time: Primarily on the occasion when the lunar satellite has an azure appearance

  For the duration of the event upon which the bovine ungulates return to their dwelling place.

  20. Julia Child’s standby: Soaring temperatures drive the intolerant from food preparation areas.

  21. Father knows best: The measure of passing moments is fleeting.

  22. Trump this! Legal tender performs discourse.

  23. Realtor’s fear: Calcium-based bony frame within a small enclosed storage space with a door.

  24. Just ask a mosquito: The body’s circulation fluid has more viscosity than that which flows from the tap.

  25. Johnny Depp would know: What’s the policy of dealing with an inebriated man of the sea?

  The deceased impart no fiction.

  Scramblers—Famous Quotes, Titles, Etc.

  Can you unscramble the order of these words to come up with a well-known quote?

  answers on pages 336-338

  1. “The soul brevity is of lingerie.” DOROTHY PARKER

  2. “Good is father surgeon looks from her he’s she got her a plastic.” GROUCHO MARX

  3. “As money as respectable has never been virtue.” MARK TWAIN

  4. “She a someone on who developed a troubled persistent expression with repair is trying to watch his which gave her the frown of gloves.” JAMES THURBER

  5. “I’m afraid it’s just I don’t die when it happens there. To want to be not that.” WOODY ALLEN

  6. “And for a man hanging good puns should be quoted he who is too makes drawn.” FRED ALLEN

  7. “About talked only about worse thing the talked being than is not being.” OSCAR WILDE

  8. “Up to have my father’s father’s father’s contempt for my father’s walk looks, speech patterns, my posture, father’s opinions and I grew my my my, my mother’s father.” JULES FEIFFER

  9. “Experience men never learn anything that we learn from from experience.” GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

  10. “Cooked like properly children. I they’re if.” W. C. FIELDS

  11. “For today yesterday tomorrow I was a dog dog. Dog I’m a little advancement. I’ll probably still be a. Sigh! so there’s hope.” SNOOPY (CHARLES SCHULZ)

  12. “Easy distance brave it safe is to be from a.” AESOP

  13. “Early man makes a bed to rise early and to wise healthy, wealthy, and.” BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

  14. “Past I think over, the we agree is.” GEORGE W. BUSH

  15. “Regulated accidents occur will in families the best.” CHARLES DICKENS

  16. “Apart by men are wide nearly alike; by nature, practice, they get to be.” CONFUCIUS

  17. “Be about reading books careful misprint. You may die of a health.” MARK TWAIN

  18. “If have you, it virtue assume not a.” WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  19. “A lifetime of bear hell happiness! No earth alive on man could be it; it would.” GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

  20. “Right if you’re on the you’ll get over even run if you just track, sit there.” WILL ROGERS

  21. “Go, again and darken my never towels.” GROUCHO MARX

  22. “A strong woman is a hot bag—you water she never tea like know how is until she gets in.” ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

  23. “Books without I cannot live.” THOMAS JEFFERSON

  24. “In the preservation is the world of wildness.” HENRY DAVID THOREAU

  25. “Me hate what you know. I tell quotations.” RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  Find the Misspelled Word

  There is one misspelled word within each sentence. Channel your inner editor and find it and correct it.

  answers on pages 338-339

  1. Although Bill’s accordion playing was strictly amatuer, Sheila, the champion professional polka dancer, still found him generally irresistible.

  2. Colonel Hardy vigorously defended the judgment of his battalion commander as a matter of principal.

  3. Janet commandeered the vaccuum cleaner and began desperately extracting dirt particles from the rug.

  4. Upon returning home from the cemetary, family members raised a glass of Grandma’s favorite drink, a daiquiri, to her memory.

  5. The boy tried to cover his embarrassment by explaining that his spontaneous outburst was inadvertant and without forethought.

  6. Craving his first decent meal since completing a jail term for drunkenness, Ronald demanded to be driven to the best resturant in town.

  7. When the office secretaries took a break, their favorite passtime was to concoct a phony questionnaire incorporating racy remarks about the company’s products.

  8. Dear Miss Bliss: Please disregard my most recent missive, which was full of mistakes. I even mispelled your name, based on misinformation and a missing address book. Sincerely, Mister Mossbrain.

  9. My dear Mossbrain: Don’t worry, any offense taken by me would be minuscule and even irrelevant since I never recieved the letter in question. Best, Chris Bliss.

  10. The police allowed witnesses to leave the crime scene, but only after gathering indispensable data about them, such as heighth, width, shoe size, and blood protein type.

  11. Throughout his long life, Angelo tried many varied careers, from plumber to playwrite, from ornithologist to jewelry designer.

  12. Sarah’s favorite aunt gave her this advice for getting the most out of life: “Follow your instincts, persue your dreams, and always seize the moment!”

  13. In his speech, the nation’s drug czar said use of an enhanced version of the illegal hallucinogen ecstacy might lead to toxic effects on the brain and hyperthermia.

  14. By the time people reach fourty, their eyes begin to weaken; by sixty they have achiness in their bones; and at eighty they may snooze a lot.

  15. Jason’s parents foresaw a scientific future for him because of his passion in school for physics, mathmatics, and chemistry.

  16. While at the market, Mother noticed that while her shopping list included broccoli, cantaloupe, razberries, and pistachios, she had forgotten to include cauliflower, my favorite veggie.

  17. In medieval times, sorcerors were sometimes considered to be instruments of sacrilege and heretical agents of the devil.

  18. Wanting a memento of their trip to the Italian peninsula, the Baileys brought back a bottle of local wine as a souvernir.

  19. When the septuagenarian and the octogenarian stood paralell to each other, they both gave the appearance of being the same or similar age.

  20. Jessica was well known for her firey personality and ability to intimidate anyone who impetuously challenged her veracity.

  21. When the stranger atte
mpted to sieze Amy in his arms, she nimbly ducked and eluded his fumbling grasp.

  22. To say that the existence of a short story with similar characters constituted plagerism by Adam was more than the judge would accept.

  23. First, the mayor appointed an inept nephew as his principal assistant; then he annointed his own privileged son as his successor.

  24. The unyielding leader of the western expedition was determined that the emigrants procede on schedule, even when the supply wagon’s axle showed dangerous signs of wear.

  25. The likelihood of Lincoln leading a liesurely life was not deemed legitimate by his fellow legislators.

  Memory Box #3

  Right or left? Feeling lost sometimes? Crossing into unknown territory? Grab hold of your cerebral compass and navigate those murky memory waters with this visual memory puzzle.

  Take a close look at the images on this page. Give yourself a minute. Then, turn the page and see how many questions you can answer.