The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge
Start writing a post
Entertainment

The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge

"I live in two worlds, one is a world of books."

468
The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge
agirlandsomebooks

If you have ever watched "Gilmore Girls," you know that Rory Gilmore loves to read. Every episode she is reading a new book and about every other scene she or someone else on the show reference a book. Some Australian writer named Patrick Lenton who apparently has no life whatsoever decided to watch every episode of Gilmore Girls and make a list of every book mentioned or read on the show. This is known as the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge. Not every book on the list is read or mentioned by her, but like a solid 89 percent are. Now, I know this list isn’t perfect; "Oliver Twist" -- the book where Jess gets his "Dodger" nickname isn't on the list. There are 154 episodes, meaning it is possible one or two books were missed.

So, with summer break comes a lot of boredom. If you have about 27 years to burn, see if you can complete this challenge. Of these 339 books, I’ve read 20, so if you don’t hear from me in the next two decades, you know what I’m doing.

Here is a list of all 339 books Lenton says "Gilmore Girls" references. See how many you’ve read and challenge yourself to complete the list once boredom sets in this summer.

1. "1984" by George Orwell

2. "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. "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank

9. "The 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 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

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 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 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

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" 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 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 Rodham 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" by 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 Desire" 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?" by Spencer Johnson

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

Report this Content
This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
Student Life

Waitlisted for a College Class? Here's What to Do!

Dealing with the inevitable realities of college life.

51524
college students waiting in a long line in the hallway
StableDiffusion

Course registration at college can be a big hassle and is almost never talked about. Classes you want to take fill up before you get a chance to register. You might change your mind about a class you want to take and must struggle to find another class to fit in the same time period. You also have to make sure no classes clash by time. Like I said, it's a big hassle.

This semester, I was waitlisted for two classes. Most people in this situation, especially first years, freak out because they don't know what to do. Here is what you should do when this happens.

Keep Reading...Show less
a man and a woman sitting on the beach in front of the sunset

Whether you met your new love interest online, through mutual friends, or another way entirely, you'll definitely want to know what you're getting into. I mean, really, what's the point in entering a relationship with someone if you don't know whether or not you're compatible on a very basic level?

Consider these 21 questions to ask in the talking stage when getting to know that new guy or girl you just started talking to:

Keep Reading...Show less
Lifestyle

Challah vs. Easter Bread: A Delicious Dilemma

Is there really such a difference in Challah bread or Easter Bread?

33080
loaves of challah and easter bread stacked up aside each other, an abundance of food in baskets
StableDiffusion

Ever since I could remember, it was a treat to receive Easter Bread made by my grandmother. We would only have it once a year and the wait was excruciating. Now that my grandmother has gotten older, she has stopped baking a lot of her recipes that require a lot of hand usage--her traditional Italian baking means no machines. So for the past few years, I have missed enjoying my Easter Bread.

Keep Reading...Show less
Adulting

Unlocking Lake People's Secrets: 15 Must-Knows!

There's no other place you'd rather be in the summer.

956061
Group of joyful friends sitting in a boat
Haley Harvey

The people that spend their summers at the lake are a unique group of people.

Whether you grew up going to the lake, have only recently started going, or have only been once or twice, you know it takes a certain kind of person to be a lake person. To the long-time lake people, the lake holds a special place in your heart, no matter how dirty the water may look.

Keep Reading...Show less
Student Life

Top 10 Reasons My School Rocks!

Why I Chose a Small School Over a Big University.

180997
man in black long sleeve shirt and black pants walking on white concrete pathway

I was asked so many times why I wanted to go to a small school when a big university is so much better. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure a big university is great but I absolutely love going to a small school. I know that I miss out on big sporting events and having people actually know where it is. I can't even count how many times I've been asked where it is and I know they won't know so I just say "somewhere in the middle of Wisconsin." But, I get to know most people at my school and I know my professors very well. Not to mention, being able to walk to the other side of campus in 5 minutes at a casual walking pace. I am so happy I made the decision to go to school where I did. I love my school and these are just a few reasons why.

Keep Reading...Show less

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Facebook Comments