If you've never heard of it, watch it now. But only if you like fast talkers, intelligent writing, and fabulous in-jokes. You need to be well-read to keep up, because where else would you hear tossed-in jokes about Sylvia Plath, Pushkin, and the proper way to pronounce culs-de-sac (yes, that is correct).
I have seen each episode about 1,000 times, and my best friend and I still dream of living in Stars Hollow. I am not embarrassed to say that I even achieved a perfect score on a Gilmore pop quiz.
There have been many recent articles online about Gilmore Girls, due to the rabid fan base the show still has, and because of the fame that three of its stars have achieved since the show went off the air: Lauren Graham (author of a great new book and star on Parenthood), Alexis Bledel (of Traveling Pants fame, and lately featured in a racy cameo on Mad Men), and Melissa McCarthy (all over the place thanks to her show-stealing turn in Bridesmaids).
The best Gilmore posts I've seen include one about the number of calories consumed by the hamburger-and-coffee obsessed Girls (close to 4,000!), and the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge.
The character of Rory was a girl after my own heart, lugging ungodly amounts of books from stop to stop, and obsessively reading whenever and wherever. And one blogger out there has not only counted every book Rory read (over 300), but has set out on a quest to read them all. That's mind-blowing. I might think about that challenge, but I'm not sure I can subject myself to Proust again. On second thought, I think I've already read more of the books than I realized.
Rory's list contains the expected high school syllabus of required reading, mixed in with biographies of everyone from punks to politicians, as well as terrific tomes by Sue Grafton, Stephen King, JK Rowling, and David Sedaris.
If you're up for it, here is the full list of Rory's books - I put check marks next to the ones I've already read, and highlighted those that are reviewed on this blog. Good luck.
1.) 1984 by George Orwell ✓
2.) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain ✓
3.) Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll ✓
4.) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon ✓
5.) An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser ✓
6.) Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt ✓
7.) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy ✓
8.) Anne Frank: The Diary of a YoungGirl by Anne Frank ✓
9.) Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
10.) The Art of Fiction by Henry James ✓
11.) The Art of War by Sun Tzu
12.) As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner ✓
13.) Atonement by Ian McEwan ✓
14.) Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
15.) The Awakening by Kate Chopin ✓
16.) Babe by Dick King-Smith
17.) Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi ✓
18.) Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie ✓
19.) Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
20.) The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath ✓
21.) Beloved by Toni Morrison ✓
22.) Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney (RIP, Mr. Heaney) ✓
23.) The Bhagava Gita
24.) The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
25.) Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel ✓
26.) A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy ✓
27.) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley ✓
28.) Brick Lane by Monica Ali ✓
29.) Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
30.) Candide by Voltaire ✓
31.) The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer ✓
32.) Carrie by Stephen King ✓
33.) Catch-22 by Joseph Heller ✓
34.) The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger ✓
35.) Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White ✓
36.) The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman ✓
37.) Christine by Stephen King ✓
38.) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens ✓
39.) A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess ✓
40.) The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse ✓
41.) The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty ✓
42.) A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare ✓
43.) Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
44.) The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton ✓
45.) Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker (fun in-joke here) ✓
46.) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole ✓
47.) The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas ✓
48.) Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac
49.) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky ✓
50.) The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber ✓
51.) The Crucible by Arthur Miller ✓
52.) Cujo by Stephen King ✓
53.) The Curious Incident of the Dogin the Night-Time by Mark Haddon ✓
54.) Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
55.) David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
56.) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens ✓
57.) The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Ugh) ✓
58.) Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol ✓
59.) Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky ✓
60.) Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller ✓
61.) Deenie by Judy Blume ✓
62.) The Devil in the White City:Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson ✓
63.) The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
64.) The Divine Comedy by Dante ✓
65.) The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells ✓
66.) Don Quixote by Cervantes ✓
67.) Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv ✓
68.) Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson ✓
69.) Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe ✓
70.) Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook ✓
71.) The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
72.) Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
73.) Eloise by Kay Thompson ✓
74.) Emily the Strange by Roger Reger ✓
75.) Emma by Jane Austen ✓
76.) Empire Falls by Richard Russo ✓
77.) Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol ✓
78.) Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton ✓
79.) Ethics by Spinoza
80.) Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves (diff edition) ✓
81.) Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
82.) Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer ✓
83.) Extravagance by Gary Krist
84.) Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ✓
85.) Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore ✓
86.) The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
87.) Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
88.) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
89.) The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien ✓
90.) Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein ✓
91.) The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
92.) Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce ✓
93.) Fletch by Gregory McDonald ✓
94.) Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes ✓
95.) The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
96.) The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand ✓
97.) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ✓
98.) Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger ✓
99.) Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers ✓
100.) Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
101.) Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
102.) George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
103.) Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
104.) Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen ✓
105.) The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
106.) The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo ✓
107.) The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy ✓
108.) Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky ✓
109.) Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell ✓
110.) The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
111.) The Gospel According to Judy Bloom ✓
112.) The Graduate by Charles Webb
113.) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck ✓
114.) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald ✓
115.) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens ✓
116.) The Group by Mary McCarthy ✓
117.) Hamlet by William Shakespeare ✓
118.) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling ✓
119.) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling ✓
120.) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
121.) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad ✓
122.) Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry ✓
123.) Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare ✓
124.) Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare ✓
125.) Henry V by William Shakespeare ✓
126.) High Fidelity by Nick Hornby ✓
127.) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon ✓
128.) Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris ✓
129.) The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
130.) House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III ✓
131.) The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
132.) How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
133.) How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss ✓
134.) How the Light Gets in by M. J. Highland
135.) Howl by Allen Ginsberg ✓
136.) The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo ✓
137.) The Iliad by Homer ✓
138.) I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres ✓
139.) In Cold Blood by Truman Capote ✓
140.) Inferno by Dante ✓
141.) Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee ✓
142.) Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
143.) It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton ✓
144.) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte ✓
145.) The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan ✓
146.) Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare ✓
147.) The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain ✓
148.) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair ✓
149.) Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
150.) The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander ✓
151.) Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain ✓
152.) The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini ✓
153.) Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence ✓
154.) The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
155.) Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman ✓
156.) The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
157.) Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis ✓
158.) Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
159.) Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken ✓
160.) Life of Pi by Yann Martel ✓
161.) Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens ✓
162.) The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
163.) The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen ✓
164.) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott ✓
165.) Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
166.) Lord of the Flies by William Golding ✓
167.) The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson ✓
168.) The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold ✓
169.) The Love Story by Erich Segal ✓
170.) Macbeth by William Shakespeare ✓
171.) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert ✓
172.) The Manticore by Robertson Davies
173.) Marathon Man by William Goldman
174.) The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
175.) Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir ✓
176.) Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
177.) Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris ✓
178.) The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
179.) Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
180.) The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare ✓
181.) The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka ✓
182.) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides ✓
183.) The Miracle Worker by William Gibson ✓
184.) Moby-Dick by Herman Melville ✓
185.) The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
186.) Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
187.) A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
188.) Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
189.) A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
190.) A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway ✓
191.) Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf ✓
192.) Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall ✓
193.) My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
194.) My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
195.) My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
196.) Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
197.) My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
198.) The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer ✓
199.) The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco ✓
200.) The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri ✓
201.) The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin ✓
202.) Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
203.) New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
204.) The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
205.) Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich ✓
206.) Night by Elie Wiesel ✓
207.) Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen ✓
208.) The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
209.) Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
210.) Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
211.) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck ✓
212.) Old School by Tobias Wolff ✓
213.) On the Road by Jack Kerouac ✓
214.) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey ✓
215.) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ✓
216.) The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
217.) Oracle Night by Paul Auster
218.) Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood ✓
219.) Othello by Shakespeare ✓
220.) Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens ✓
221.) The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
222.) Out of Africa by Isac Dineson ✓
223.) The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton ✓
224.) A Passage to India by E.M. Forster ✓
225.) The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
226.) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky ✓
227.) Peyton Place by Grace Metalious ✓
228.) The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde ✓
229.) Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
230.) Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
231.) Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
232.) The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby ✓
233.) The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker ✓
234.) The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
235.) The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
236.) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ✓
237.) Property by Valerie Martin
238.) Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
239.) Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw ✓
240.) Quattrocento by James Mckean
241.) A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
242.) Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers ✓
243.) The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe ✓
244.) The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
245.) Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
246.) Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier ✓
247.) Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin ✓
248.) The Red Tent by Anita Diamant ✓
249.) Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman ✓
250.) The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien ✓
251.) R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton ✓
252.) Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
253.) Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
254.) Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton ✓
255.) Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare ✓
256.) A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf ✓
257.) A Room with a View by E. M. Forster ✓
258.) Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin ✓
259.) The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
260.) Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
261.) Sanctuary by William Faulkner ✓
262.) Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford ✓
263.) Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
264.) The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum ✓
265.) The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne ✓
266.) Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand ✓
267.) The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
268.) The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd ✓
269.) Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
270.) Selected Hotels of Europe
271.) Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
272.) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen ✓
273.) A Separate Peace by John Knowles
274.) Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
275.) Sexus by Henry Miller
276.) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
277.) Shane by Jack Shaefer
278.) The Shining by Stephen King ✓
279.) Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
280.) S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton ✓
281.) Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut ✓
282.) Small Island by Andrea Levy
283.) Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway ✓
284.) Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers ✓
285.) Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
286.) The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
287.) Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
288.) The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
289.) Songbook by Nick Hornby ✓
290.) The Sonnets by William Shakespeare ✓
291.) Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
292.) Sophie’s Choice by William Styron ✓
293.) The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner ✓
294.) Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
295.) Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
296.) The Story of My Life by Helen Keller ✓
297.) A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams ✓
298.) Stuart Little by E. B. White ✓
299.) Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway ✓
300.) Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
301.) Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
302.) Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber ✓
303.) A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens ✓
304.) Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald ✓
305.) Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry ✓
306.) Time and Again by Jack Finney
307.) The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger ✓
308.) To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway ✓
309.) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee ✓
310.) The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare ✓
311.) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith ✓
312.) The Trial by Franz Kafka
313.) The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
314.) Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
315.) Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
316.) Ulysses by James Joyce ✓
317.) The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
318.) Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe ✓
319.) Unless by Carol Shields
320.) Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann ✓
321.) The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers ✓
322.) Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray ✓
323.) Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard ✓
324.) The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides ✓
325.) Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ✓
326.) Walden by Henry David Thoreau ✓
327.) Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
328.) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy ✓
329.) We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
330.) What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
331.) What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell ✓
332.) When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
333.) Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson (unfortunately) ✓
334.) Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee ✓
335.) Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire ✓
336.) The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum ✓
337.) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte ✓
338.) The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings ✓
339.) The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion ✓
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