Books played a big part in the television show "The Gilmore Girls." Rory was an avid reader. When Rory and Lorelai were going to Europe, Rory wanted to bring 12 books. Mind you, she was carrying everything in a backpack. Recently, a friend sent me a link to an episode-by-episode listing of all of the books seen, read, or mentioned in the series and the idea for a challenge was born. Of course, I didn't really have any idea how many books that actually was. Or how to set up a challenge. So I'm a little late getting this up and running. The good news is that there should be something in this for everyone. Rory and company read everything from Homer to Dan Brown and poetry to social commentary. The challenge will officially run from January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2010. You can begin reading now and anything that you're not more than half way through right now can be counted.Crossover books from other challenges are allowed. A lot of the books on the list have also been made into movies and those will count as well.
There are three levels of participation:
Emily: Read 5 books from at least two different categories.
Lorelai: Read 10 books from at least three different categories.
Rory: Read 20 books from at least four different categories.
Here is the very long list of books you can choose from:
Classics
| Austen | Jane | Northanger Abbey |
| Austen | Jane | Emma |
| Austen | Jane | Pride & Prejudice |
| Bronte | Emily | Wuthering Heights |
| Bronte | Charlotte | Jane Eyre |
| Browning | Elizabeth Barrett | Sonnets From The Portuguese |
| Cervantes | Don Quixote | |
| Chaucer | Geoffrey | Canterbury Tales, The |
| Dante | Inferno | |
| Dante | Divine Comedy, The | |
| Dickens | Charles | David Cooperfield |
| Dickens | Charles | Little Dorrit |
| Dickens | Charles | Great Expectations |
| Dickens | Charles | A Tale of Two Cities |
| Dickens | Charles | Our Mutual Friend |
| Dickens | Charles | A Christmas Carol |
| Dickens | Charles | Oliver Twist |
| Dickinson | Emily | New Poems of Emily Dickinson |
| Flaubert | Gustave | Madame Bovary |
| Heaney | Seamus | Beowulf: A New Verse Translation |
| Homer | Iliad, The | |
| Hugo | Victor | Hunchback of Notre Dame, The |
| Lawrence | D. H. | Lady Chatterley's Lover |
| Melville | Herman | Moby Dick |
| Poe | Edgar Allen | Raven, The |
| Shakespeare | William | Othello |
| Shakespeare | William | Henry IV, Part 2 |
| Shakespeare | William | Julius Caesar |
| Shakespeare | William | Romeo And Juliet |
| Shakespeare | William | Hamlet |
| Shakespeare | William | Henry V |
| Shakespeare | William | Merry Wives of Windsor, The |
| Shakespeare | William | A Comedy of Errors |
| Shakespeare | William | Richard III |
| Shakespeare | William | The Sonnets |
| Shakespeare | William | Macbeth |
| Shelley | Mary | Frankenstein |
| Stowe | Harriet Beecher | Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| Thoreau | Henry David | Walden |
| Tolstoy | Leo | War And Peace |
| Tolstoy | Leo | Anna Karenina |
| Twain | Mark | The Jumping Frog of Calavares County |
| Twain | Mark | Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
| Voltaire | Candide | |
| Wharton | Edith | Roman Holiday |
| Whitman | Walt | Leaves of Grass |
Childrens/Young Adult
| Anderson | Hans Christian | Little Match Girl, The |
| Baum | L. Frank | Wizard of Oz, The |
| Baum | L. Frank | Scarecrow of Oz, The |
| Blume | Judy | Deenie |
| Brothers Grimm | Rapunzel | |
| Carroll | Lewis | Alice's Adventures in Wonderland |
| Chbosky | Stephen | Perks of Being A Wallflower, The |
| Collodi | Carol | Pinocchio |
| Granowsky | Alvin | Goldilocks & The Three Bears |
| Grimm Brothers | Snow White and Rose Red | |
| Hinton | S. E. | Outsiders, The |
| Keene | Carolyn | The Nancy Drew Series |
| King-Smith | Dick | Babe |
| Lofting | Hugh | Doctor Doolittle |
| Rawlings | Marjorie Kinnan | Yearling, The |
| Rodgers | Mary | Freaky Friday |
| Rowling | J. K. | Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire |
| Rowling | J. K. | Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone: Book 1 |
| Salten | Felix | Walt Disney's Bambi (based on Original Story by Felix Salten) |
| Seuss | Dr. | How The Grinch Stole Christmas |
| Sobol | Donald | Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective |
| Thompson | Kay | Eloise |
| White | E. B. | Stuart Little |
| White | E. B. | Charlotte's Web |
| Wiggin | Kate Douglas | Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm |
Modern Classics
| Albee | Edward | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? |
| Beckett | Samuel | Waiting for Godot |
| Burgess | Anthony | A Clockwork Orange |
| Dostoevsky | Fyodor | Demons (translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky) |
| Du Maurier | Daphne | Rebecca |
| Faulkner | William | Sanctuary |
| Faulkner | William | As I Lay Dying |
| Faulkner | William | Sound and The Fury, The |
| Fitzgerald | F. Scott | Tender is the Night |
| Fitzgerald | F. Scott | Great Gatsby, The |
| Forster | E. M. | A Room With A View |
| Ginsburg | Allen | Howl |
| Heller | Joseph | Catch-22 |
| Hellman | Lillian | Children's Hour, The |
| Hemingway | Ernest | Snows of Killimanjaro |
| Hemingway | Ernest | Sun Also Rises, The |
| Hemingway | Ernest | A Moveable Feast |
| Hemingway | Ernest | To Have And Have Not |
| James | Henry | Daisy Miller |
| James | Henry | Art of Fiction, The |
| Joyce | James | Finnegan's Wake |
| Joyce | James | Ulysses |
| Kafka | Franz | Trial, The |
| Kafka | Franz | Metamorphosis |
| Lawrence & Lee | Jerome & Robert Edwin | Inherit The Wind |
| Lee | Harper | To Kill A Mockingbird |
| Mailer | Norman | Naked & The Dead, The |
| Mencken | H. R. | Mencken's Chresthonomy |
| Mencken | H. R. | My Life As Author & Editor |
| Miller | Henry | Sexus |
| Miller | Arthur | Crucible, The |
| Mitchell | Margaret | Gone With The Wind |
| Nordhoff & Hall | Charles & James Norman | Mutiny On The Bounty |
| Orwell | George | Nineteen Eighty-four |
| Parker | Dorothy | Portable Dorothy Parker, The |
| Plath | Sylvia | Bell Jar, The |
| Proust | Marcel | Swann's Way |
| Rand | Ayn | Fountainhead, The |
| Salinger | J. D. | Franny And Zooey |
| Salinger | J. D. | Catcher In The Rye, The |
| Shaefer | Jack | Shane |
| Steinbeck | John | Grapes of Wrath, The |
| Tolkien | J.R.R. | The Fellowship of the Rings: Lord of the Ring Book 1 |
| Tolkien | J. R. R. | The Return of The King: Lord of the Ring Book 3 |
| Vonnegut | Kurt | Slaughterhouse Five |
| Welty | Eudora | Collected Stories of Eudora Welty, The |
| Williams | Tennessee | A Streetcar Named Desire |
| Woolf | Virginia | A Room of One's Own |
| Woolf | Virginia | Mrs. Dalloway |
Non-fiction
| Albaret | Celeste | Monsieur Proust |
| Albom | Mitch | Tuesdays With Morrie |
| Assorted Authors | Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism | |
| Binyon | T. J. | Pushkin: A Biography |
| Bolles | Richard Nelson | What Color Is Your Parachute? 2005 |
| Bourdain | Anthony | Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly |
| Bugliosi & Gentry | Vincent & Curt | Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders |
| Butler | Judith | Gender Trouble |
| Capote | Truman | In Cold Blood |
| Clinton | Hilary Rodham | Living History |
| Clinton | Hilary Rodham | It Takes A Village |
| Collett | Anne | Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals |
| Cook | Blanche Wiesen | Eleanor Roosevelt |
| De Beauvoir | Simone | Second Sex, The |
| De Beauvoir | Simone | Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter |
| Denison | Isak | Out of Africa |
| Des Barres | Pamela | I'm With The Band |
| Didion | Joan | Year of Magical Thinking, The |
| Eggers | Dave | A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius |
| Ehrenreich | Barbara | Nickel And Dimed |
| Faludi | Susan | Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women |
| Fodor | Eugene | Selected Hotels of Europe |
| Ford | Ford Madox | Good Soldier, The |
| Franken | Al | Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them |
| Friedman | Milton | A Monetary History of the United States |
| Gibbon | Edward | History of the Decline & Fall of The Roman Empire, The |
| Gibson | William | Miracle Worker, The |
| Harvard | Joe | Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground & Nico (33 1/3 Series) |
| Hersh | Seymour M. | My Lai 4: A Report On The Massacre And Its Aftermath |
| Huffington | Arianna | Pigs At The Trough |
| Irvin | Jim | Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion, The |
| Johnson | Spencer | Who Moved My Cheese? |
| Kagan | Donald | Outbreak of the Peoponnesian War, The |
| Kagan | Donald | Peace of Nicias & The Sicilian Expedition, The |
| Kagan | Donald | Archidamian War |
| Kerouac | Jack | On The Road |
| Lee/Neil/Mars/Sixx | The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band | |
| Lipton | Lawrence | Holy Barbarians, The |
| Macaulay | David | New Way Things Work, The |
| McCarthy | Mary | A Bolt From The Blue & Other Essays |
| McCarthy | Mary | Group, The |
| McNeill & McCain | Legs and Gillian | Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk |
| Meyers | Phillip | Vanishing Newspaper, The |
| Milford | Nancy | Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay |
| Moore | Barrington | Social Origins of Dictatorship & Democracy: Lord & Peasant in the Making of the Modern World |
| Moore | Michael | Fahrenheit 9/11 |
| Nietzche | Fredrich | Portable Nietzche, The |
| Pagels | Elaine | Gnostic Gospels |
| Plath | Sylvia | Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, The |
| Rubin M.D. | Theodore Issac | David and Lisa |
| Sherman | Wiliam Tecumseh | Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman |
| Sinker | Daniel | We Owe You Nothing - Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews (Edited) |
| Spinoza | Baruch | Ethics |
| Steves | Rick | Europe Through The Back Door, 2003 |
| Suskind | Ron | The Price of Loyalty: George W Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill |
| Taylor | Hobart Chatfield | Moliere: A Biography |
| Thompson | Hunter S. | Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas |
| Thompson | Hunter S. | Fear & Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72 |
| Thurman | Judith | Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette |
| Tzu | Sun | Art of War, The |
| Vidal | Gore | The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 |
| Waldo | Myra | Myra Waldo's Travel & Motoring Guide To Europe |
| Weisberg | Jacob | George W Bushisms: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit & Wisdom of Our 43rd President |
| Woolf | Thomas | Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The |
| Wurtzel | Elizabeth | Bitch In Praise of Difficult Women |
| Rough Guide To Europe, The 2003 Edition | ||
| Compact Oxford English Dictionary, The | ||
| several biographies of Winston Churchill |
Other
| Allende | Isabel | House of the Spirits, The |
| Allende | Isabel | Eva Luna |
| Bloom | Judy | Gospel According To Judy Bloom, The |
| Brown | Dan | DaVinci Code, The |
| Bukowski | Charles | Notes of a Dirty Old Man |
| Davies | Robertson | Manticore, The |
| Dubus III | Andre | House of Sand And Fog, The |
| Ellis | Bret Easton | Less Than Zero |
| Erdrich | Louise | Love Medicine |
| Eugenides | Jeffrey | Virgin Suicides, The |
| Faber | Michel | Crimson Petal and the White, The |
| Farrell | Henry | What Happened To Baby Jane? |
| Foer | Jonathon Safran | Everything Is Illuminated |
| Gogol | Nikolai Vasilevich | Dead Souls |
| Goldman | William | Marathon Man |
| Grafton | Sue | R is For Richocet |
| Grafton | Sue | S is For Silence |
| Hathaway | Katharine Butler | Little Locksmith, The |
| Hornsby | Nick | High Fidelity |
| Kaysen | Susanna | Girl, Interrupted |
| Kennedy | William J. | Ironweed |
| King | Stephen | Cujo |
| King | Stephen | Shining, The |
| King | Stephen | Carrie |
| King | Stephen | Christine |
| King | Stephen | Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption |
| Kohner | Frederick | Gidget |
| Lerner | Alan Jay | Brigadoon |
| Levin | Ira | Rosemary's Baby |
| Marquez | Gabriel Garcia | One Hundred Years of Solitude |
| McCourt | Frank | Angela's Ashes |
| McDonald | Gregory | Fletch |
| McEwan | Ian | Atonement |
| McMurtry | Larry | Terms of Endearment |
| Metalious | Grace | Peyton Place |
| Parker | Dorothy | Complete Stories |
| Powell | Dawn | Complete Novels/Novels 1930-1942 |
| Powell | Dawn | Selected Letters of Dawn Powell |
| Pressfield | Steven | Legend of Bagger Vance, The |
| Puzo | Mario | Godfather: Book 1, The |
| Reger | Roger | Emily The Strange |
| Rilke | Rainer Maria | Letters to a Young Poet |
| Robert | Henry | Robert's Rules of Order |
| Segal | Erich | Love Story |
| Sexton | Anne | Complete Poems, The |
| Stein | Joseph | Fiddler On The Roof |
| Styron | William | Sophie's Choice |
| Susann | Jacqueline | Valley of the Dolls |
| Tan | Amy | Joy Luck Club, The |
| Toole | John Kennedy | A Confederacy of Dunces |
| Uhry | Alfred | Driving Miss Daisy |
| Webb | Charles | Graduate, The |
| Wells | Rebecca | Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, The |
| Welty | Eudora | Collected Short Stories, The |
| Bhagava Gita, The |
