Saturday, January 8, 2011

CHALLENGE: Rory Gilmore's Perpetual Reading Challenge


Lately I've taken up watching the Gilmore Girls series, and like any self-respecting bibliophile, I find myself fascinated with what books are being read by the teen character Rory. So I decided that I wish to try my hand at reading some of her literary choices, especially since many of them are some of the classics that I've been wanting to read.

I didn't feel like doing a challenge with time limits and minimum requirements. I simply want to read through the list at my own pace. I couldn't find a perpetual reading challenge that seemed to really be current. The only only one that I found hasn't had any posts since early 2010.

So I decided to create my own. So this is my Rory Gilmore's Perpetual Reading Challenge. The goal is simple: To read through the books from the Gilmore Girls TV show. There are several lists of the books to be found out there, and I don't think any of the lists that I found had the same number of books on them. So I don't know for sure how accurate this list is, but it looks like the books I would expect to see Rory read.

I'm listing the books below. Those that are top of my list I am posting in BOLD purple. A few of the books I've read, but it was years ago, so I need to re-read them again and review them. As I complete books, I will link to their reviews on this post.

Since I already have a number of books to get to, I probably won't even get started on this list for a few months. But a couple of my books are already on this list, so that helps. Some of the books I've already read, but it was long ago, so I will re-read them:
  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 Young Girl 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
  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 Short 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
  46. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
  47. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père
  48. Cousin Bette by Honor’e 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 Dog in 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 
  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 Quijote 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
  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: Book 1 of The Lord 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. Hyland
  135. Howl by Allen Gingsburg
  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 Brontë 
  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 Windsro 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: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 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 Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
  320. The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
  321. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray 
  322. Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
  323. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
  324. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
  325. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
  326. Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
  327. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  328. We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
  329. What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
  330. What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
  331. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
  332. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
  333. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
  334. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
  335. The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
  336. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
  337. The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 
  338. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
If anyone else out there desires to join in, you are welcome to. The more the merrier! Just comment below to let me know, and check in every now and then to let me know about the books you've read/reviewed. We'll see how it goes. This will take me many years!

4 comments:

Gilion at Rose City Reader said...

How fun! I often find myself flipping through various Rory lists. My Teutonic nature doesn't like that none of the lists are definitive, but they are tempting.

I'll check back read this more closely.

Alex @ The Blethering Bookworm said...

This sounds so good. I was addicted to Gilmore Girls when it was on TV and I thought Rory was a great character.

Great idea!

http://thebletheringbookworm.blogspot.com/

Theshortone08 said...

I love the Gilmore Girls!
But how do you know what books she read?

Heather said...

Martha, there are lists available out on the web. There are people who kept track of the books she mentioned in the episodes. Saved me from doing the work!