There is a Reaper – General Understanding Quiz

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Approximate Reading Times

Quick Read: under 5 minutes
Short Story: 5 to 30 minutes
Novelette: 30 to 90 minutes
Novella: 1.5 to 2.5 hours

The Wreath
Short Story by Luigi Pirandello. A middle-aged doctor is disturbed to learn that his much younger wife, who still has feelings for a former lover who died before they married, has gone behind his back and secretly ordered a wreath for the anniversary of his death.
Yesterday was Beautiful
Short Story by Roald Dahl. A wounded British aviator forced to parachute behind enemy lines learns how things can go from “beautiful” to your worst nightmare overnight. When he asks for someone with a boat who can take him to safety, he experiences first-hand the brutal results of indiscriminate bombing.
Aunty Misery
Puerto Rican Folktale. A wish granted by a travelling sorcerer solves a problem for an old woman whose precious pear tree is constantly stripped of its fruit by mischievous children. It also helps her cheat Death when it comes for her and force him to grant her immortality.

The Lost Child
Short Story by Mulk Raj Anand. A boy gets so carried away by the excitement of a fair that he becomes separated from his parents. Alone in the arms of a kind stranger, all he wants is to be reunited with his mother and father.
Look at All Those Roses
Short Story by Elizabeth Bowen. Car trouble on a deserted country road results in a woman spending several unsettling hours with an "amazon of a woman" and her seemingly psychic, paralyzed daughter. The pair, who she later learns harbor a frightening secret, make her increasingly anxious.
My Father Goes to Court
Short Story by Carlos Bulosan. A rich man files a legal complaint against his poor neighbors for standing outside his house and enjoying the aroma of his food. The poor family’s father goes to court and comes up with a novel approach to win the case.
Nobody Will Laugh
A Czechoslovakian college lecturer goes to great lengths to avoid telling the truth about a substandard paper an amateur researcher has sent him. The researcher persists, resulting in a comic series of events where the lecturer is not only charged with immoral conduct, but also loses his job and partner.

The Sacrificial Egg
Quick Read by Chinua Achebe. A “highly educated” Nigerian office worker who should know better than to believe in local superstitions covers himself both ways by still observing some of them. Unfortunately, in trying to avoid breaking one superstitious rule he literally 'breaks' another by stepping on a sacrificial egg.
Bartleby the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street
Novelette by Herman Melville. A lawyer shows remarkable tolerance and compassion towards a disturbed scrivener (scribe). The man suffers from depression. Feeling alone in the world and lacking a meaning or purpose in life, his coping mechanisms are self-isolation, lack of communication and passive resistance to his duties at work.
The Wreath
Short Story by Luigi Pirandello. A middle-aged doctor is disturbed to learn that his much younger wife, who still has feelings for a former lover who died before they married, has gone behind his back and secretly ordered a wreath for the anniversary of his death.