Book review: The Lake District Quiz Book

When I was asked if I would like to review a new book, The Lake District Quiz Book by local publisher Inspired by Lakeland, there was only one possible answer. A book? Involving quizzing and the Lake District? That’s three of my favourite things rolled into one!

And if you’re a fan of curious Lake District facts, you’ll want to get hold of a copy too. The book was created by local fell walker Dave Felton, who’s climbed all 214 Wainwrights and so really knows his stuff. It contains ‘635 fiendish questions’, with questions divided into a number of rounds of varying style, including ‘quick fire’, multiple choice, truth or lie, ‘fill the blanks’, and ‘identify the image’.

The questions all appear on green pages to the front of the book, with the answers on white pages to the rear. Amongst the answers you’ll also find a number of extra titbits of information, which make this book a fun way to test your knowledge and learn more about the Lake District at the same time.

The question is, having written a blog about the Lake District for over two years, would I be any good?

Dave’s right when he describes the questions as ‘fiendish’. As you might expect, I knew a fair few answers about people, places and things, but relatively few of the ones for which you’ll need a knowledge of the felltops (if you’ve been following the blog for a while, you’ll probably know by now that I’m really not into walking in high places!). And when it comes to identifying fells, even from lower ground, I am usually well and truly stumped.

That wouldn’t put me off purchasing the quiz book though, as it’s no fun knowing every answer to a quiz anyway – to be honest, if I can get one question right on University Challenge I’m usually dancing around for the rest of the evening!

There are a couple of situations I think this book would be particularly suited to:

1. As a present for someone who loves to spend time in the Lake District, and
2. As something to do with family or friends either when you’re staying in the Lakes, or having a get together at home (and to really get into the spirit you would of course need some Lake District refreshment to hand – choose your local ales very carefully, as you never know when those bottle labels might give you a valuable clue! 😉 ).

As you might remember from a recent book review I wrote, I do like to ‘road test’ (as one reader described it so well!) any non-fiction Lake District book I write about, so I decided to test a few rounds from the quiz book on two long-suffering guinea pigs when it comes to the blog – my parents! We got off to a bit of a bumpy start with a question from a quick fire round, namely:

Where are you if facing the following: Botterills Slab (VS), White Wizard (E3), Ringwraith (E5), Saxon (E2), Moss Gill (S) and Hopkinsons Gully (MVS)?

… to which my mother promptly answered ‘lost’.

We did much better on the local industry round though, and scored almost full points on the section dedicated to Lake District food. I think that shows where the priorities lie in our family! 🙂

Some of the questions (and answers) are really intriguing and surprising, and often spark conversation – which you’ll need to control if you’re going to get through the round by the end of the night! It’s light-hearted in style too, with one or two amusing questions thrown in here and there for good measure!

The Lake District Quiz Book retails at £6.99, which I think is really good value for money. Knowing how much time goes into researching and writing any of my blog posts for Lake District Gems, I can imagine the work that has gone into its creation. Do get hold of a copy, and let me know how you get on in the comments below!

Thank you for entering the competition!

Inspired by Lakeland very kindly offered blog readers the chance of winning one of three copies of The Lake District Quiz Book, and the competition has now closed.

To enter, I asked you to email me the correct answer to the following multiple choice question:

The small stone viewing station framing waterfalls on Rydal Beck is nicknamed what?

a) La’al falls

b) The grot

c) The fluβ

d) The mill

The answer was b) the grot, which I visited at Rydal Hall on the blog last year – it’s well worth taking the time to see it for yourself!

Thank you to everyone who entered, and congratulations to the following winners of the quiz book:

Jane Ward

Gemma Cook

Claire Davies

And don’t forget to look out for more competitions and giveaways on the blog in the future – sign up to the newsletter so you don’t miss them!