World Literature

Hey, readers: If you’re tired of losing at bar quizzes to sports fans and music aficionados, here’s a chance to dominate. Ryan Chapman, marketing director at Penguin Press, dreamed up a trivia night for the literati. Chapman confesses, “I wanted to be Alex Trebek” (don’t we all). In 2010, he launched Nerd Jeopardy, a riff on the Jeopardy! format: All the questions are book-related, groups of three play rather than individuals, and attendees are loosened up with complimentary wine.

Prospective teams are drawn from a hat at the start of every event, with competitors vying for signed and special-edition books (and the likelihood of getting hit on after the game). Audience members also have a shot at a $100 gift certificate during an interlude of parlor games. A previous winner was able to correctly arrange the titles from Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past in chronological order. If your response to that challenge is, “Can I answer in the original French?, ” perhaps you should throw your hat in the ring for the main event. Here are three tips, provided by Chapman himself, to help you crush your opposing bibliophiles.