Books & Authors Mixed Quiz: Set 4

The correct answer is B, R. Venkataraman. His account of the office, published as My Presidential Years, is valued because his term fell in a period of short-lived governments, and it records how a President handles the choice of a Prime Minister when no party has a majority.

Option A, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, also wrote a memoir, but its title is Without Fear or Favour, and that pairing is the one examiners use to catch candidates who half remember the chapter. Option C, Giani Zail Singh, is not the author of this book. Option D, Shankar Dayal Sharma, is remembered for his speeches rather than for a memoir of this kind. When the title of a book names the office itself, attach it to the person who held that office, and note that Pranab Mukherjee's posthumous volume carries the similar name The Presidential Years.

The correct answer is A, Shashi Tharoor. Kerala: God's Own Country is an illustrated book on the land, people and culture of Kerala, written by Shashi Tharoor with photographs by M.F. Husain and brought out in 2009. Tharoor, a former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and later a Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram, has written many other books, among them The Great Indian Novel, India: From Midnight to the Millennium, An Era of Darkness and Why I Am a Hindu. 'God's Own Country' is also the tourism tagline of Kerala. Option B is wrong because Jeet Thayil is a poet and novelist known for Narcopolis, which reached the Booker shortlist in 2012. Option C is wrong because Sudha Murthy writes fiction and essays such as Wise and Otherwise, Dollar Bahu and Three Thousand Stitches. Option D is wrong because Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai was a Malayalam novelist who wrote Chemmeen and won the Jnanpith Award in 1984. Exam tip: Tharoor - The Great Indian Novel; Thakazhi - Chemmeen; Thayil - Narcopolis.

The correct answer is C, Sachin Tendulkar. Playing It My Way is the autobiography of Sachin Tendulkar and was published shortly after he retired from international cricket. It covers his boyhood in Mumbai, his coaching under Ramakant Achrekar and his long career for India.

Option A, Kapil Dev, wrote Straight from the Heart, which deals with the 1983 World Cup victory among other events of his career. Option B, Sunil Gavaskar, wrote Sunny Days, and also Idols and Runs n Ruins, so he is a frequent name in the same question set. Option D, Rahul Dravid, has not written an autobiography of this name; the books associated with him were written by others about his career, which is exactly the distinction between autobiography and biography that the question is testing.

The correct answer is C, Ocean Vuong. The Emperor of Gladness, released in May 2025, is a novel by the Vietnamese-American writer and poet Ocean Vuong. Vuong was born near Saigon in 1988 and came to the United States as a child refugee. He first drew notice for the poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds and then for the novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, and he has held a MacArthur Fellowship; migration, memory and working-class life run through all his writing. A is wrong because Colum McCann is an Irish novelist, best known for Let the Great World Spin. B is wrong because Sharon Lee is an American science-fiction writer and not the author of this novel. D is wrong because Charlotte McConaghy is an Australian novelist, known for Migrations. Exam tip: Ocean Vuong - Night Sky with Exit Wounds, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and The Emperor of Gladness in 2025.

The correct answer is A, Pranab Mukherjee. These are the second and third volumes of his political memoir, the first being The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years. Together they cover Indian politics from the early 1970s until his election as President, and a fourth volume, The Presidential Years, appeared after his death.

Option B, Manmohan Singh, wrote as an economist, his best-known work being India's Export Trends and the Prospects for Self-Sustained Growth. Option C, K. R. Narayanan, is associated with collections such as Images and Insights. Option D, P. V. Narasimha Rao, wrote the novel The Insider and a book on the Ayodhya question, and since his years in office fall inside the period named in the title, he is the distractor most often chosen. Learn the trilogy as one unit and it cannot be broken up in the options.

The correct answer is B, Mahatma Gandhi. The Story of My Experiments with Truth is the autobiography of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, written originally in Gujarati and later translated into English. It covers his childhood, his years as a student in London, his work in South Africa and the shaping of his ideas on truth and non violence, and it stops well before the final phase of the national movement.

Option A, Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote An Autobiography, published in Britain as Toward Freedom, besides The Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History. Option C, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, wrote India Wins Freedom, an account of the last years before independence and of partition. Option D, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, did not write an autobiography; his letters and speeches were published in collected volumes by others after his death.

The correct answer is B, Sanjaya Baru. Sanjaya Baru served as media adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and wrote The Accidental Prime Minister as an insider's account of those years. Because it is written by an observer rather than by the subject, the book is counted as a memoir about Manmohan Singh and not as his autobiography.

Option A, Manmohan Singh, did not write the book, and assuming that he did is the mistake the question is designed to catch. Option C, Daman Singh, is his daughter and wrote Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan, a family account of her parents, which is a different book altogether. Option D, Natwar Singh, wrote his own memoir One Life Is Not Enough, which deals with his career in the foreign service and in politics.

The correct answer is B, Arundhati Roy. 'Mother Mary Comes to Me' is Arundhati Roy's memoir, published in September 2025, and it is built around her difficult, loving bond with her mother Mary Roy. Mary Roy was a teacher who founded a school in Kerala and won the 1986 Supreme Court case that gave Syrian Christian women an equal share in family property. Arundhati Roy herself won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her first novel, 'The God of Small Things', and later wrote 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' along with many essays. A is wrong because Jhumpa Lahiri is known for 'Interpreter of Maladies', which won the Pulitzer Prize, and 'The Namesake'. C is wrong because Vikram Seth wrote 'A Suitable Boy' and 'The Golden Gate'. D is wrong because Chetan Bhagat writes popular novels such as 'Five Point Someone' and 'Half Girlfriend'. Exam tip: Arundhati Roy — 'The God of Small Things', Booker Prize 1997.

The correct answer is B, his daughter Indira. Nehru wrote the letters from prison in the early 1930s to explain the history of the world to a young reader, and they were later collected as Glimpses of World History. The same relationship produced the shorter book Letters from a Father to His Daughter.

Option A, Mahatma Gandhi, exchanged a great many letters with Nehru, but that correspondence is not this book. Option C, Motilal Nehru, was his father and a leader in his own right; the letters ran from father to daughter, not from son to father. Option D, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, was a colleague and the first President, and appears here only as a plausible name from the same generation. Fix the trio of Nehru titles together: An Autobiography, Glimpses of World History and The Discovery of India, all written in jail.

The correct answer is B, Kapil Dev. Straight from the Heart is the autobiography of Kapil Dev, the fast bowler who captained India to its first World Cup win in 1983 at Lord's. The book came out in 2004 and describes his rise from Chandigarh, the 175 not out against Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells and his years as captain and coach. Kapil Dev was the first bowler to take 400 wickets in Test cricket and was named Indian Cricketer of the Century by Wisden in 2002. Option A is wrong because Sachin Tendulkar wrote Playing It My Way. Option C is wrong because M.S. Dhoni has not written an autobiography; his life was told in a film and in books by other authors. Option D is wrong because Sourav Ganguly wrote A Century Is Not Enough. Exam tip: Straight from the Heart is Kapil Dev, Playing It My Way is Sachin Tendulkar, A Century Is Not Enough is Sourav Ganguly.

The correct answer is B, Anne Frank. The Diary of a Young Girl is the diary kept by Anne Frank while her family was in hiding in Amsterdam during the Second World War. She died in a concentration camp, and the diary was published afterwards by her father, the only member of the family to survive, which is why the question mentions posthumous publication.

Option A, Helen Keller, wrote The Story of My Life, her own account of learning to communicate despite being deaf and blind from infancy. Option C, Malala Yousafzai, wrote I Am Malala, about the attack on her in the Swat valley and her campaign for the education of girls. Option D, Pearl S. Buck, was a novelist best known for The Good Earth, a work of fiction set in China and not a diary.

The correct answer is B, Jawaharlal Nehru. He wrote it in 1944 while imprisoned in Ahmadnagar Fort, tracing Indian history and thought from the earliest times. Its Hindi version is Bharat Ki Khoj and the television series Bharat Ek Khoj was based on it.

Option A, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, wrote India Divided in 1946, Satyagraha in Champaran and the Hindi autobiography Atmakatha, and because he and Nehru wrote in the same years he is the distractor used most often here. Option C, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, wrote on philosophy, including Indian Philosophy and The Hindu View of Life, not on history. Option D, Sardar Patel, left speeches and letters rather than a book of this kind. Remember that all three of Nehru's famous titles, An Autobiography, Glimpses of World History and The Discovery of India, were written in prison.

The correct answer is B, Morarji Desai, who published his autobiography under the title The Story of My Life. He had a long career in Gujarat and at the centre before becoming Prime Minister at the head of the first non-Congress government, and the book covers that whole span.

Option A, Lal Bahadur Shastri, did not write an autobiography; the works associated with him are biographies written by others. Option C, Charan Singh, wrote on agriculture and rural economy, including works arguing for peasant proprietorship, rather than a life story of this name. Option D, H. D. Deve Gowda, is not the author of a book examiners ask about. Pair this with the other Prime Ministerial memoirs so the options cannot confuse you: Matters of Discretion is I. K. Gujral's and The Insider is Narasimha Rao's novel.

The correct answer is C, Bal Gangadhar Tilak. He wrote Gita Rahasya during his imprisonment at Mandalay in Burma, reading the Bhagavad Gita as a call to selfless action rather than to withdrawal from the world, an interpretation that suited his own politics of active resistance.

Option A, Lala Lajpat Rai, wrote Unhappy India and The Story of My Deportation. Option B, Bipin Chandra Pal, was the third member of the Lal Bal Pal trio and is remembered chiefly as an orator and editor rather than for this book. Option D, Aurobindo Ghosh, wrote Essays on the Gita as well as The Life Divine, which is exactly why he is placed in these options: two of the four names have written on the Gita. The distinguishing detail is the prison, Mandalay, which belongs to Tilak.

The correct answer is D, India Divided. India Divided was written by Rajendra Prasad, who later became the first President of India, and it examines the demand for partition and the arguments made on either side. It does not belong to the Nehru list at all.

Option A, The Discovery of India, was written by Nehru during his imprisonment at Ahmednagar Fort and surveys the long history of Indian civilisation. Option B, Glimpses of World History, is the collection of letters he wrote from prison to his daughter Indira, sketching the history of the world. Option C, Toward Freedom, is the title under which his An Autobiography was published in Britain, so it is the same book under another name and is very much his.

The correct answer is C, Kalhana. He wrote the Rajatarangini, whose name means the river of kings, in Kashmir in the twelfth century. Because he arranged rulers in order of time and used inscriptions, coins and earlier records, the work is treated as the earliest piece of history writing in India in the modern sense.

Option A, Somadeva, also of Kashmir, compiled the Kathasaritsagara, the ocean of streams of story, which is a vast collection of tales rather than a chronicle. Option B, Jayadeva, wrote the Gita Govinda at the court of Lakshmana Sena of Bengal, a lyrical work on Krishna and Radha. Option D, Kshemendra, was another Kashmiri writer of the same broad period, which is why his name is offered here. The examinable phrase is chronicle of Kashmir, and it belongs to Kalhana alone.

The correct answer is A, I. K. Gujral. His autobiography, Matters of Discretion, covers a career that ran from the freedom movement through the ministries he held to his term as Prime Minister, and it is the book usually cited alongside the foreign policy approach that carries his name.

Option B, V. P. Singh, is remembered for his politics and his painting and poetry rather than for this title. Option C, Chandra Shekhar, held office for a short period and is not the author examiners ask about. Option D, Manmohan Singh, is an economist whose academic work, India's Export Trends and the Prospects for Self-Sustained Growth, is the title linked with his name, along with collections of his speeches. Titles that sound like memoirs of office are the hardest part of this chapter, so learn them as a short list rather than guessing.

The correct answer is B, Mary Kom. Unbreakable is the autobiography of the boxer Mary Kom from Manipur, and it describes her early life in a farming family, her training, her world championship titles and her return to the ring after becoming a mother.

Option A, Sania Mirza, wrote Ace Against Odds, a book about her tennis career written with her father and a journalist. Option C, P. T. Usha, the sprinter who narrowly missed an Olympic medal at Los Angeles in 1984, is not the author of this title. Option D, Saina Nehwal, is the subject of Playing to Win, an account of her badminton career, so all three distractors are real sporting names attached to different books, which is how such questions are built.

The correct answer is B, Narendra Modi. Exam Warriors is written for school students facing examinations and sets out short chapters on preparation, sleep, play and dealing with pressure. His other titles include the essays in Jyotipunj and collections of poems in Gujarati.

Option A, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, wrote a great deal for young readers, Ignited Minds above all, which makes him the most tempting wrong answer in this question. Option C, Manmohan Singh, wrote on trade and economic policy. Option D, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, published poetry, including Meri Ekyavan Kavitayen, and his parliamentary speeches as Meri Sansadiya Yatra. Read the subject of the book in the question stem, because this chapter separates its authors by subject as much as by office.

The correct answer is A, Walter Isaacson. Walter Isaacson wrote the authorised biography of Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, after a long series of interviews with him. Isaacson is known for biographies of exceptional individuals and has also written lives of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, which is a useful link to remember.

Option B, Robert Kanigel, wrote The Man Who Knew Infinity about Srinivasa Ramanujan and has no connection with the Apple founder. Option C, Katherine Frank, wrote Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi, a biography of the Indian prime minister. Option D, Ramachandra Guha, is an Indian historian whose works include India After Gandhi and a two part life of Mahatma Gandhi, so he too writes biography but not this one.