I Challenge You to Read 339 Books + A Free Checklist
yekl rmo
I love, love, love the Gilmore Girls, it was my go to guilty pleasure TV show to watch a few years ago. I don’t know what it is about that show, maybe the awesome but weird relationship between Rory and Lorelai, maybe all the references to pop culture, or the fact that Melissa McCarthy was totally awesome as Sookie, or maybe it was just all the books.
Have you heard about the Rory Gilmore Reading challenge? I came across it a few years ago and bookmarked it for future reference. Well the future is now! This list of 339 titles comes from all the books seen being read by Rory or others during The Gilmore Girls’ seven seasons, or mentioned by one of the characters. The list is available in different places all over the web like this challenge group on Goodreads. The best way to find out how many you have read is by using this quiz: I’ve read a total of 86 so far in all my years of reading! You can sign-in to that site as a way to keep track of the list as you read more books, but because I don’t want to have to go to yet another website, plus I love all things paper, I compiled the entire list into a printable PDF booklet that I will keep in my journal.
And you are welcome to have it too! The pages are already formatted in booklet order for letter sized paper. All you have to do is print it out double-sided, fold in half, staple or stitch the seam and voila! (A4 users, it should print out just fine for you too, as long as you select “Fit to Page”. I used A4 for my booklet.
It fits perfectly into the Clipbook from Filofax that I use for journaling.
I already mentioned that my goal for this year is to read 60 books. Usually I don’t have a plan of attack for my reading, but this year I plan to use a bit of strategy, so I chose the following twelve books from the Rory Gilmore list to read this year, one per month. In no particular order they are:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
How The Light Gets In by M J Hyland
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
I’m already behind, having only come up with this clever idea yesterday, but with some vacation time coming up in February, I should be able to catch up! Although at the rate of 12 books a year it will take me all of 21 years to read them all! I think I’m okay with that.
Have you read any of the books on my list or the complete list? Download the checklist below, or take the quiz, then let me know! Which of the books are some of your favourites? I’ve started a separate bookshelf on Goodreads for the challenge, and I’ll be adding to it the books I plan to read from the list.
Update December 2018: I am now up to 106 books read. The Sister Reads book club, which was born out of the list has really helped! We read 6 of the books on the list every year. Join us here.
And now I really, really really want to watch the entire Gilmore Girls Series all over again. Anyone else?
To get the checklist, join the book club. You will find it in the Files section of the group.
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