I have taken on the challenge to become better-read.
My post-college ambitions included waking up prior to six in the morning, hustling to and from the metro station and K Street, and arriving home post seven in the evening. Somewhere in the vortex that is city ambition and adulting, my love of reading became a forgotten and unnoticed lost indulgence.
Earlier this year I began a resolution with myself to read the classics that I hadn't studied in all of my schooling, an aspiration that directed me to an understanding of the immensities of content that I had sadly missed in all of great literature. I then willingly and dutifully led myself down the rabbit hole of a forlorn and obsessive quarter-life crisis; this steered me to a boundless search of reading content and a variant of book challenges, to which I then found one entirely too long and seemingly unattainable, which of course, by then, fit the bill instantly. Being an avid fan of the bookish Rory Gilmore, a girl who made smart cool, since Gilmore girls premiered like an after-school special on ABC Family (because I missed the WB years), I've taken it upon myself to become not only well-read but also well-directed in my endeavors.
Amy Sherman-Palladino created a truly fantastic, false-reality world that is the show Gilmore girls, which has created its own cult-like following. This brings me to the core of my choosing this particular challenge first, this show is brilliant. Gilmore girls exemplifies how brilliant ASP is, simply by how well the dialogue is written, and good writing comes from reading, and reading in mass. Alas, here I will postmark my reading challenge and contribute any synopses linked below from the books she purposely chose to include in each episode as props and character development enhancement.
According to Australian writer Patrick Lenton, there are 337 books captured from the complete seven seasons of the Gilmore Girls series. While I know that this list of 337 books is not absolutely correct in entirety, I plan to use the list as a catalyst and edit as I see fit. Although I would aspire to read them in the order they are presented, I am following along with The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge on Goodreads. It presents a read-along and discussion every month on any listed book and also a chosen quarterly catch-up book. Follow my progress on my Goodreads account here. I plan to read each book with the group, but I am subject to pick up any listed book that strikes my fancy intermittently, including those from AYITL. The books are alphabetically organized below for reference.
2020 UPDATE: Click for the true, updated, and edited list here: The Gilmore Project. This page is dedicated to a correct and curated list of books as referenced and mentioned in the entirety of ASP's Gilmore girls. I have distinguished which authors, actual books, and movies are mentioned throughout the show for the most accurate list of all references. I have also signaled which books are physically read by each character and which movies were watched during the multitude of Gilmore movie nights. As a bonus, I also denote which textbooks are featured as they are seen. What can I say? I like to be thorough.
ⓡ = referenced book pertaining to general pop culture, no visual or mention of being read
ⓜ = referenced movie pertaining to general pop culture, context of being seen or watched
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A
3. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll ⓡ
7. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
B
C
38. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
46. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (only mentioned as a sandwich!)
D
57. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
58. Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
59. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
60. Deenie by Judy Blume
61. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
62. The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
63. The Divine Comedy by Dante
64. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
65. Don Quixote by Cervantes
66. Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
67. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
E
69. Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
70. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
71. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
72. Eloise by Kay Thompson ⓡ
73. Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
74. Emma by Jane Austen
75. Empire Falls by Richard Russo
76. Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
77. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
78. Ethics by Spinoza
79. Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
80. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
81. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
82. Extravagance by Gary Krist
F
83. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
84. Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
85. The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
86. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
87. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
88. The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien ⓜ
89. Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
90. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
91. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
92. Fletch by Gregory McDonald
93. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
94. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
95. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
96. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
97. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
98. Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers ⓜ
G
99. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
100. Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
101. George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
102. Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
103. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen ⓜ
104. The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
105. The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
106. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
107. Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
108. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
109. The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
110. The Graduate by Charles Webb
111. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
112. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald ⓡ
113. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
114. The Group by Mary McCarthy
H
115. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
116. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
117. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
118. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
119. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
120. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
121. Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
122. Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
123. Henry V by William Shakespeare
124. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
125. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
126. Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
127. The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
128. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
129. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
130. How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
131. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
132. How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
133. Howl by Allen Ginsberg
134. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo ⓡ
I
135. The Iliad by Homer
136. I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
137. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
138. Inferno by Dante
139. Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
140. Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
141. It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
J
142. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
143. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
144. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
145. The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
146. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
147. Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
148. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
149. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
150. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
L
151. Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
152. The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
153. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
154. The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield ⓜ
155. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
156. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
157. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
158. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
159. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
160. The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
161. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
162. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott by Louisa May Alcott
163. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
164. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
165. The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
166. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
167. The Love Story by Erich Segal
M
168. Macbeth by William Shakespeare
169. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
170. The Manticore by Robertson Davies
171. Marathon Man by William Goldman
172. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
173. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
174. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
175. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
176. The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
177. Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
178. The Merry Wives of Windsro by William Shakespeare
179. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
180. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
181. The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
182. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
183. The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
184. Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
185. A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
186. Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
187. A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
188. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
189. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
190. Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
191. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
192. My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
193. My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
194. Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
195. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
N
196. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
197. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
198. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
199. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
200. Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
201. New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
202. The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
203. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
204. Night by Elie Wiesel
205. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
206. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
207. Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
208. Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
O
209. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
210. Old School by Tobias Wolff
211. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
212. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
213. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
214. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
215. Oracle Night by Paul Auster
216. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
217. Othello by Shakespeare
218. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
219. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
220. Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
221. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton ⓜ
P
222. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
223. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
224. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
225. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
226. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
227. Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
228. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi ⓜ
229. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
230. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
231. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
232. The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
233. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
234. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
235. Property by Valerie Martin
236. Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
237. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Q
238. Quattrocento by James Mckean
239. A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
R
240. Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
242. The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
243. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
244. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
245. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
246. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
247. Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
248. The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien ⓜ
249. R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
250. Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
251. Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
252. Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
253. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
254. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
255. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster ⓜ
256. Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin ⓜ
257. The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
S
258. Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
259. Sanctuary by William Faulkner
260. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
261. Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
262. The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum ⓜ
263. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
264. Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
265. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
266. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
267. Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
268. Selected Hotels of Europe
269. Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
270. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
271. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
272. Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
273. Sexus by Henry Miller
274. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
275. Shane by Jack Shaefer
276. The Shining by Stephen King ⓜ
277. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
278. S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
279. Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
280. Small Island by Andrea Levy
281. Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
283. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
284. The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
285. Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
286. The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
287. Songbook by Nick Hornby
288. The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
289. Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
290. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron ⓜ
291. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
292. Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
293. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
294. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
295. A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams ⓜ
296. Stuart Little by E. B. White
297. Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
298. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
299. Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
300. Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
T
301. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
302. Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
303. Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry ⓜ
304. Time and Again by Jack Finney
305. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
306. To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
307. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
308. The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
309. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
310. The Trial by Franz Kafka
311. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
312. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
313. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
U
314. Ulysses by James Joyce
315. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
316. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
317. Unless by Carol Shields
V
318. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
319. The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
320. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
321. Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
322. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
W
323. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
324. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
325. Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten ⓜ
326. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
327. We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
328. What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
329. What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell ⓜ
330. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
331. Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
332. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
333. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
334. The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum ⓜ
335. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Y
336. The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings ⓜ
337. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
“Headmaster Charleston, faculty members, fellow students, family and friends, welcome. We never thought this day would come. We prayed for its quick delivery, crossed days off our calendars, counted hours, minutes and seconds and now that it’s here, I’m sorry it is, because it means leaving friends who inspire me and teachers who’ve been my mentors, so many people who’ve shaped my life, and my fellow students lives impermeably and forever.
I live in two worlds. One is a world of books. I’ve been a resident of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, hunted the white whale aboard the Pequod, fought alongside Napoleon, sailed a raft with Huck and Jim, committed absurdities with Ignatius J. Reilly, rode a sad train with Anna Karenina and strolled down Swann’s Way. It’s a rewarding world, but my second one is by far superior. My second one is populated with characters slightly less eccentric, but supremely real, made of flesh and bone, full of love, who are my ultimate inspiration for everything.
Richard and Emily Gilmore are kind, decent, unfailingly generous people. They are my twin pillars, without whom I could not stand. I am proud to be their grandchild. But my ultimate inspiration comes from my best friend, the dazzling woman from whom I received my name and my life’s blood, Lorelai Gilmore. My mother never gave me any idea that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted to do or be whomever I wanted to be. She filled our house with love and fun and books and music, unflagging in her efforts to give me role models from Jane Austen to Eudora Welty to Patti Smith. As she guided me through these incredible eighteen years, I don’t know if she ever realized that the person I most wanted to be was her. Thank you, Mom: you are my guidepost for everything.”
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