Questions set by Anne Enright, Will Self, Kamila Shamsie and more 

The big literary quiz of the year: authors test your knowledge of 2018’s books

From salmon fishing to textavism, naked tennis to Trump’s thirst for Diet Coke ... pit your wits against authors like Will Self and Anne Enright in our bumper quiz
  
  

Review Quiz Inside illustration for Christmas quiz

  1. Anne Enright.

    ANNE ENRIGHT: In Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden, Andrew from Belfast survives a bomb in another city. Which city?

    1. Paris

    2. London

    3. Beirut

    4. Boston

  2. In A Pagan Place by Edna O’Brien, Emma agrees to send home a postcard when her secret baby is born. “All well with Volkswagen” will mean it is a boy. What car is code for a girl?

    1. Triumph Herald

    2. Robin Reliant

    3. Hillman Minx

    4. Morris Minor

  3. In Sally Rooney’s Normal People, how many more points does Connell get in his Leaving Certificate than his friend Marianne?

    1. 25

    2. just 10

    3. they get the same

    4. none, she has honours maths

  4. Jonathan Coe, photographed in Barnes, London

    JONATHAN COE: Which of these novels concerns a forger called Wyatt Gwyon and an art dealer called Recktall Brown?

    1. The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan

    2. The Recognitions by William Gaddis

    3. The Allegations by Mark Lawson

    4. The Fabrications by Baret Magarian

  5. The film A Touch of Love, starring Sandy Dennis and Ian McKellen, is based on which novel?

    1. The Millstone by Margaret Drabble

    2. Maybe the Moon by Armistead Maupin

    3. A Touch of Love by Jonathan Coe

    4. Winter Garden by Beryl Bainbridge

  6. Which of these books did not inspire a progressive rock album of the 1970s?

    1. Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

    2. The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico

    3. Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake

    4. Watership Down by Richard Adams

  7. Kamila Shamsie.

    KAMILA SHAMSIE: What is the name of Xandra’s dog in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch?

    1. Popper

    2. Pepper

    3. Pickle

    4. Pipette

  8. What is the name of Andrew Aguecheek’s horse in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night?

    1. Dobbin

    2. Capilet

    3. Curtal

    4. Galathe

  9. What is the name of Liz’s cat in Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate?

    1. Charlemagne

    2. Carloman

    3. Tamburlaine

    4. Barbarossa

  10. William Boyd.

    WILLIAM BOYD: Which of the following writers did not live in Chelsea?

    1. PL Travers

    2. Charles Dickens

    3. George Eliot

    4. John Betjeman

  11. Who in Ernest Hemingway’s immediate family had a gender reassignment?

    1. Ernest Hemingway

    2. John Hemingway

    3. Patrick Hemingway

    4. Gregory Hemingway

  12. Which writer is responsible for this sentence? “At times the sound of low fugitive laughter made him tremble like a leaf.”

    1. James Joyce

    2. Vladimir Nabokov

    3. Barbara Cartland

    4. Anthony Burgess

  13. Olivia Laing

    OLIVIA LAING: Who does Virginia Woolf’s Orlando finally marry?

    1. Gussy Fink-Nottle

    2. Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine

    3. Sir Jocelyn Hitchcock

    4. Eustace Clarence

  14. Where would you not encounter a fox hunt?

    1. Riders by Jilly Cooper

    2. Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope

    3. Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting by Penelope Mortimer

    4. Lady into Fox by David Garnett

  15. Where would you eat chipolata sausages served with boiled onions and apples stewed in tea?

    1. The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

    2. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

    3. The Eve of St Agnes by John Keats

    4. The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester

  16. Ian Rankin.

    IAN RANKIN: The centenary of novelist Muriel Spark took place in 2018, including a revival of the only stage play she wrote. Is it called … ?

    1. Masters of Science

    2. Doctors of Philosophy

    3. Bachelors of Art

    4. Doctors of Divinity

  17. The Reservoir Tapes was the follow-up to which fictional work?

    1. Reservoir Dogs

    2. The Anderson Tapes

    3. Reservoir 13

    4. Canal Dreams

  18. What two words connect the Beatles’ White Album to American author and attorney Vincent Bugliosi?

    1. Dear Prudence

    2. Glass onion

    3. Revolution nine

    4. Helter Skelter

  19. Val McDermid.

    VAL MCDERMID: Which of these trilogies ended up, according to its author, as merely being three books from a fictitious universe of 15 titles?

    1. Millennium trilogy

    2. Sword of Honour trilogy

    3. Foundation trilogy

    4. Regeneration trilogy

  20. If you were salmon fishing on the River Turlie, which detective would you be most likely to encounter?

    1. John Rebus

    2. Hamish Macbeth

    3. Karen Pirie

    4. Alan Grant

  21. If you multiply the pillars of wisdom by Dorothy L Sayers’ tailors, then subtract Hannay’s steps and Dickens’ cities, what’s the problem?

    1. Mr Penumbra’s 24‑hour bookstore

    2. Catch-22

    3. The Thirteen Problems

    4. 21 Lessons for the 21st century

  22. Will Self.

    WILL SELF: Which writer accompanied Truman Capote as he investigated the Clutter family murders for his book In Cold Blood?

    1. Flannery O’Connor

    2. Carson McCullers

    3. Eudora Welty

    4. Harper Lee

  23. Which murderous character has been portrayed by actors John Malkovich, Alain Delon, Matt Damon?

    1. Hannibal Lecter

    2. Moosbrugger

    3. George Harvey Bone

    4. Tom Ripley

  24. Which of these writers created that character?

    1. Agatha Christie

    2. Zadie Smith

    3. Patricia Highsmith

    4. Kate Tempest

  25. Daisy Johnson.

    DAISY JOHNSON: In a year of Greek mythic retellings, who retold the story of the daughter of Helios who uses her power, among other things, to turn men into pigs?

    1. Pat Barker

    2. Emily Wilson

    3. Michael Hughes

    4. Madeline Miller

  26. Naomi Alderman’s first novel, Disobedience, was made into a film this year, but what power do women find they have in her most recent novel The Power?

    1. To release electrical shocks from their fingers

    2. To control different elements

    3. To speak all languages

    4. Ability to fly

  27. Sarah Hall won the 2013 BBC Short Story prize with a story about a woman who turns into what animal?

    1. A raven

    2. A fox

    3. A badger

    4. A tiger

  28. John Banville

    JOHN BANVILLE: Which novelist in his eminently phthisic masterpiece featured among an extensive cast of characters a Hegelian-Marxist Jewish Jesuit modelled on Georg Lukács?

    1. Thomas Pynchon

    2. Thomas Mann

    3. Thomas Wolfe

    4. Thomas Harris

  29. Who, in a time with alarming pre-echoes of our own, wished to show an affirming flame?

    1. WH Hudson

    2. WH Auden

    3. WH Davies

    4. WH Smith

  30. Who has “sailed the seas and come … to B … a small town fastened to a field in Indiana”?

    1. William Faulkner

    2. William Butler Yeats

    3. William Styron

    4. William H Gass

  31. The 2018 Booker shortlist.

    Which crime novelist made a surprise appearance on the Man Booker longlist?

    1. Belinda Bauer

    2. Val McDermid

    3. Tana French

    4. Robert Galbraith

  32. Who won this year’s alternative Nobel prize for literature?

    1. Maryse Condé

    2. Neil Gaiman

    3. Haruki Marukami

    4. Olga Tokarczuk

  33. Pankaj Mishra

    “The latest in a long line of eggheads pretentiously but harmlessly romancing the noble savage.” Pankaj Mishra wrote this about which thinker?

    1. Yuval Noah Harari

    2. Jordan Peterson

    3. Mary Beard

    4. Richard Dawkins

  34. Which book ended: “I am no longer a writer”?

    1. The Rub of Time by Martin Amis

    2. Kudos by Rachel Cusk

    3. Normal People by Sally Rooney

    4. The End by Karl Ove Knausgaard

  35. Kamila Shamsie’s 2018 Women’s prize-winning novel Home Fire anticipated the elevation of a politician of Pakistani origin to which high office?

    1. Chancellor the exchequer

    2. Prime minister

    3. Home secretary

    4. Foreign secretary

  36. MIchelle Obama, pictured in November.

    To what mythical animal did Michelle Obama compare her husband in her bestselling memoir Becoming?

    1. A unicorn

    2. A centaur

    3. A pushmi-pullyu

    4. A phoenix

  37. Helen Dunmore was the second poet to be awarded the Costa prize posthumously. Who was the first?

    1. Seamus Heaney

    2. Philip Larkin

    3. UA Fanthorpe

    4. Ted Hughes

  38. What was Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas’s autobiography called?

    1. The Tour According to GT

    2. The Tour According to G

    3. The Tour According to G&T

    4. The Tour According to Geraint Thomas

  39. The first book of which great writer who died this year was called Rocannon’s World?

    1. Philip Roth

    2. Tom Wolfe

    3. Ursula K Le Guin

    4. VS Naipaul

  40. Which grime artist launched an imprint with Penguin Random House this year called #Merky Books?

    1. Stormzy

    2. Skepta

    3. Wiley

    4. Dizzee Rascal

  41. Cassandra Darke by Posy Simmonds

    Posy Simmonds’s festive thriller Cassandra Darke was influenced by … ?

    1. A Christmas Carol

    2. ’Twas the Night Before Christmas

    3. The Snowman

    4. Die Hard

  42. Whose second world war diary was made into a graphic novel this year?

    1. Winston Churchill

    2. Anne Frank

    3. Joseph Goebbels

    4. Spike Milligan

  43. The Drunken Sailor by Nick Hayes celebrates the life of … ?

    1. Arthur Conan Doyle

    2. Arthur Rimbaud

    3. Arthur Ransome

    4. Arthur Rackham

  44. Cover of Sabrina.

    Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina was the first graphic novel to be …?

    1. Nominated for the Orwell prize

    2. Longlisted for the Man Booker prize

    3. Shortlisted for the Turner prize

    4. Winner of the Arthur C Clarke prize

  45. “It’s the title of something [my spouse] published ... and actually I’m in a lot of trouble because I said: ‘That’s a good title, maybe I’ll use it.’ And out of politeness [they] said: ‘Yeah, OK.’” Who stole the book’s name?

    1. Santa Montefiore from Simon Sebag Montefiore

    2. Michael Frayn from Claire Tomalin

    3. Zadie Smith from Nick Laird

    4. Paul Auster from Siri Hustvedt

  46. Who tweeted this in response to Lee Child’s search for a new Jack Reacher? “I’ve got the height, I’ve got the menace, the physical prowess, the fitness levels, the ruthlessness ... you need look no further, Lee.”

    1. Karl Ove Knausgaard

    2. Jane Smiley

    3. Benjamin Markovits

    4. Stephen Fry

  47. “It was culture as class performance, literature fetishised for its ability to take educated people on false emotional journeys.” Whose protagonist said this about a reading event?

    1. Daisy Johnson’s Gretel in Everything Under

    2. Rachel Cusk’s Faye in Kudos

    3. Jonathan Coe’s Doug in Middle England

    4. Sally Rooney’s Connell in Normal People

  48. Who said this in a post‑victory interview? “I haven’t yet told them [to stop my benefits]: I mean, I got the cheque two days ago!”

    1. Ted Hughes winner Jay Bernard

    2. Man Booker winner Anna Burns

    3. Desmond Elliott winner Preti Taneja

    4. Orwell winner Darren McGarvey

  49. From whose writing tips? “It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.”

    1. Jonathan Franzen

    2. Martin Amis

    3. Karl Ove Knausgaard

    4. Philip Hensher

  50. Who said this? “Before I read digitally, I’d be reading perhaps 10 books simultaneously – but now I read as many as 50 at once.”

    1. Will Self

    2. Marina Warner

    3. Geoff Dyer

    4. Michiko Kakutani

  51. Benedict Cumberbatch in Patrick Melrose.

    Whose fictional alter ego was played on TV by Benedict Cumberbatch?

    1. Alan Hollinghurst

    2. Edward St Aubyn

    3. Anthony Powell

    4. Howard Jacobson

  52. Who played a literary giant on screen and then published a book?

    1. Michael Palin

    2. Simon Callow

    3. David Walliams

    4. Ruth Jones

  53. Which writer did Keira Knightley play in a film premiered in London in October?

    1. Vita Sackville-West

    2. Leonora Carrington

    3. Nancy Mitford

    4. Colette

  54. Alexander Skarsgard in The Little Drummer Girl.

    Who, in 2018, played Ian’s Florence and Anton’s Nina and was cast as Louisa’s Jo?

    1. Saoirse Ronan

    2. Lily Collins

    3. Olivia Cooke

    4. Bel Powley

  55. John le Carré’s cameo in The Little Drummer Girl was as … ?

    1. Yugoslav border guard

    2. Israeli torturer

    3. Austrian waiter

    4. English milkman

  56. What do these newly coined words mean? Textavism

    1. fabric conditioning

    2. watching TV with subtitles on

    3. sending political messages via SMS

    4. a brutish prose style

  57. Bougie

    1. like a candle

    2. fast-moving

    3. aspirationally consumerist

    4. a dancing budgerigar

  58. fintech

    1. snorkelling equipment

    2. computer-aided money manipulation

    3. a robot shark

    4. Scandinavia’s Silicon Valley

  59. autoheterodyne

    1. pansexual

    2. self-pleasuring

    3. capable of repairing any car

    4. able to mix signals

  60. moonmoon

    1. double act of buttock‑baring

    2. the moon of a moon

    3. friendly troll

    4. satellite of love

  61. Ali Smith.

    Who says “Merry Christmas” at the end of Ali Smith’s Winter?

    1. Donald Trump

    2. Charles Dickens

    3. Barbara Hepworth

    4. Ant and Dec

  62. “People here are so rooted in one place, through generations, that they might as well be trees. They hate London, the EU, politicians, newspapers … ” Where have the unhappy metropolitan couple in Amanda Craig’s The Lie of the Land been forced to move to?

    1. Cornwall

    2. Middlesbrough

    3. Devon

    4. Stoke-on-Trent

  63. What is the name of the rightwing political party in Sam Byers’ Brexit satire Perfidious Albion?

    1. England Always

    2. England First

    3. UKOK

    4. The Black Shorts

  64. In Jonathan Coe’s novel based around the EU referendum, Middle England, what is the song that Benjamin Trotter repeatedly listens to?

    1. “A New England” by Billy Bragg

    2. “Adieu to Old England” by Shirley Collins

    3. “Oh England My Lionheart” by Kate Bush

    4. “This is England” by the Clash

  65. Which radical American writer did Olivia Laing channel for her novel about political and personal upheaval in the summer of 2017, Crudo?

    1. Audre Lorde

    2. Chris Kraus

    3. Eileen Myles

    4. Kathy Acker

  66. One of the first consignments of Wolff's Fire and Fury to arrive in the UK in January.

    In Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury we learned that Donald Trump refuses to let White House staff touch which of his possessions because he is fearful of being poisoned?

    1. His toothbrush

    2. His iPhone

    3. His hairbrush

    4. His TV remote

  67. How long was Trump biographer and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci in post?

    1. 1 hour

    2. 1 day

    3. 10 days

    4. 100 days

  68. According to Michael Lewis’s The Fifth Risk, which of these songs and their performers did president-elect Trump enthuse about to the world leader who called him after his election win?

    1. “I love Paris” by Frank Sinatra to the president of France

    2. “Down Under” by Men at Work to the prime minister of Australia

    3. “Walk like an Egyptian” by the Bangles to the president of Egypt

    4. “Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner” by Chas & Dave to the Queen

  69. In Bob Woodward’s Fear, Trump is quoted as claiming to be the … ?

    1. Abraham Lincoln of 140 characters

    2. Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters

    3. Oscar Wilde of 140 characters

    4. Alexander Solzhenitsyn of 140 characters

  70. Former contestant on The Apprentice and White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman estimated in her book that Trump had consumed how many cans of Diet Coke over the last 15 years?

    1. More than 1,000

    2. More than 5,000

    3. More than 2,000

    4. More than 40,000

  71. Muriel Spark, pictured in 1985.

    Which pseudonym was used by Muriel Spark, who was born in 1918?

    1. AM Bernard

    2. Aquarius

    3. Abram Tertz

    4. Mary Pollock

  72. Victor Frankenstein was created in 1818, but where was he born?

    1. Naples

    2. Island of Gont

    3. Timișoara

    4. Mytholmroyd

  73. Bicentenarian Emily Brontë’s best friend after Anne was ...?

    1. Toby Chien, a French bulldog

    2. Basket, a poodle

    3. Pinka, a cocker spaniel

    4. Keeper, a bullmastiff

  74. Which landmark literary censorship trial ended 50 years ago?

    1. Lady Chatterley

    2. Ulysses

    3. Howl

    4. Last Exit to Brooklyn

  75. Who, according to an anniversary biography, was fond of naked tennis?

    1. Wilfred Owen

    2. Enid Blyton

    3. Guillaume Apollinaire

    4. Jacqueline Susann

Solutions

1:A, 2:C, 3:B, 4:B, 5:A, 6:C, 7:A, 8:B, 9:A, 10:B - He was married in Chelsea, however., 11:D - Also known as Gloria., 12:A - In Dubliners., 13:B, 14:C, 15:A, 16:B, 17:C - Both were written by Jon McGregor, 18:D - Helter Skelter was the title of the book co-written by Bugliosi and Curt Genry about the Charles Manson murders., 19:C - By Isaac Asimov, 20:D - It's where Inspector Grant spends much of his convalescence in The Singing Sands, 21:B - 7 x 9 = 63 63 - 39 = 24 24 - 2 = 22, 22:D, 23:D, 24:C, 25:D, 26:A, 27:B, 28:B - Naphta in The Magic Mountain, 29:B - In the poem 'September 1, 1939', 30:D - In the opening of his short story 'In the Heart of the Heart of the Country'., 31:A, 32:A, 33:B, 34:D, 35:C, 36:A, 37:D, 38:B, 39:C, 40:A, 41:A, 42:B, 43:B, 44:B, 45:C, 46:D, 47:D, 48:B, 49:A, 50:A, 51:B, 52:A, 53:D, 54:A, 55:C, 56:C, 57:C, 58:B, 59:D, 60:B, 61:A, 62:C, 63:A, 64:B, 65:D, 66:A, 67:C, 68:C, 69:B, 70:D, 71:B, 72:A, 73:D, 74:D, 75:B

Scores

  1. 53 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  2. 54 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  3. 52 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  4. 51 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  5. 50 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  6. 49 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  7. 48 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  8. 47 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  9. 46 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  10. 45 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  11. 43 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  12. 44 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  13. 42 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  14. 41 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  15. 40 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  16. 39 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  17. 38 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  18. 37 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  19. 35 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  20. 36 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  21. 34 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  22. 33 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  23. 23 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  24. 22 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  25. 24 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  26. 25 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  27. 26 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  28. 27 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  29. 28 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  30. 32 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  31. 17 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  32. 16 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  33. 15 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  34. 14 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  35. 13 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  36. 12 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  37. 10 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  38. 9 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  39. 8 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  40. 7 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  41. 6 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  42. 5 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  43. 4 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  44. 11 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  45. 18 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  46. 19 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  47. 20 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  48. 21 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  49. 29 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  50. 30 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  51. 31 and above.

    Not bad! Crack open some of those books on your bedside table and try again.

  52. 75 and above.

    Can't do better than that! Amazing result.

  53. 73 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  54. 74 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  55. 72 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  56. 71 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  57. 70 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  58. 69 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  59. 68 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  60. 67 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  61. 66 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  62. 65 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  63. 64 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  64. 55 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  65. 56 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  66. 57 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  67. 58 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  68. 59 and above.

    An admirable effort. Try again later and see if you can better your score!

  69. 60 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  70. 61 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  71. 62 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  72. 63 and above.

    Well done! It seems you read closely this year.

  73. 3 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  74. 2 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  75. 0 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?

  76. 1 and above.

    Oh dear. Maybe go read some more and try again?
 

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