The Best Books to Read from the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge
I love to participate in and create my own reading challenges. So when I binge watched The Gilmore Girls on Netflix, I loved Rory’s kind and intellectual character and thought it would be fun to read like Rory and discovered this Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge.
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Books Read:
Here’s what I’ve read for the challenge so far (book #’s correspond to original list, full list link at bottom of the post):
1. 1984* by George Orwell (read in high school)
3. Alice in Wonderland* by Lewis Carroll, 2* not a fan of this one
8. Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl* by Anne Frank (read in high school)
19. Bel Canto* by Ann Patchett (read for book club, 3*, set in South America for Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge)
29. Candide* by Voltaire (free on Kindle)
30. The Canterbury Tales* by Geoffrey Chaucer (free on Kindle)
33. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
34. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
46. The Count of Monte Cristo* by Alexandre Dumas (reread in 2018, still my favorite classic!)
50. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
61. Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson (link to my 4* review, a creepy and enlightening read for this time in history but a nonfiction that read as easily as fiction)
83. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
90. The Five People You Met in Heaven* by Mitch Albom (I’m a sucker for Mitch Albom’s books, this one is FREE with an Audible trial)
112. The Great Gatsby* by F. Scott Fitzgerald (free with an Audible Trial)
116. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* by J.K. Rowling (my favorite of the HP series, Rory has good taste! The audio version is FREE with an Audible trial and narrated by Jim Dale, my favorite audiobook narrator whose voice lends the perfect amount of mystery and magic to the story)
117. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone* by J. K. Rowling (like #116 FREE with an Audible Trial and narrated by Jim Dale so worth grabbing on audio for the ultimate HP experience)
129. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (great for book lovers who like to travel the world in books and magical realism)
131. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
142. Jane Eyre* by Charlotte Bronte (read parts in high school but currently rereading/listening to the audiobook as it’s part of my Barnes & Noble Paperback Classics collection) – reread in 2020 (listened to on audiobook and very much enjoyed it!)
150. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (this book destroyed me back when I read it, i almost put it down but I finished and probably need to reread it considering how much I LOVED And the Mountains Echoed* by the same author).
162. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (a favorite I enjoyed more as a mother than when I tried to read it as a child)
164. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
199. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin – a funny book moms can relate to!
234. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
253. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
263. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn
274. The Shadow of the Wind* by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (MY FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME! I even bought it in Spanish when we were in Spain even though I can’t read it. It’s so beautiful translated in English, I can only imagine how amazing it is in Zafon’s native language.)
297. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (I have never loathed a book as much as I disliked this one!)
305. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
307. To Kill a Mockingbird* by Harper Lee (listened to on audio narrated by Sissy Spacek and it was phenomenal. Definitely grab it for free with Audible audiobook trial with Sissy as narrator.)
313. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
333. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (4*, i loved the story once Elphaba left the house but her childhood was creepy and sad)
335. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (another Bronte I read most of in high school but want to reread and see if i can appreciate it more now)
Total read: 33 (but I read The Count of Monte Cristo twice so…34?)
Want to keep track of the books you read for the Rory Gilmore Challenge? Subscribe to my Newsletter and get your free Reading Challenge Trackers here!
Books I Want to Read:
7. Anna Karenina* by Leo Tolstoy
21. Beloved by Toni Morrison
23. The Bhagavad 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
37. A Christmas Carol* by Charles Dickens (free on Kindle)
52. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time* by Mark Haddon (I bought this one at a library sale and it would count for the 2018 Popsugar Reading challenge I’m doing too for a book with an animal in the title)
56. The DaVinci Code* by Dan Brown (I got this one for free on Kindle when they had a deal, but you can grab it for FREE with an Audible Audiobook trial too).
63. The Divine Comedy by Dante
65. Don Quixote* by Cervantes (ever since our trip to Spain and seeing the first editions of Don Quixote in the Royal Palace in Madrid, I’ve been wanting to read this chunkster. Get it free on Kindle Unlimited)
68. Edgar Allen Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allen Poe
74. Emma by Jane Austen (I wasn’t as huge of a fan of Pride and Prejudice as the rest of the literary community so I want to give another Austen a try)
81. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (another library sale score and I loved Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close on audio* that I listened to many years ago).
88. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien (we have this book so I really should read it)
96. Frankenstein by Mary Shelly (another classic I bought so really need to read)
101. George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President* by Jacob Weisberg
106. The God of Small Things* by Arundhati Roy
108. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
134. The Hunchback of Notre Dame* by Victor Hugo (free with an Audible audiobook trial)
135. The Iliad* by Homer (FREE on Kindle or with Audible Audiobook trial)
137. In Cold Blood* by Truman Capote (a book we own and would qualify for True Crime for 2018 Popsugar Reading Challenge)
143. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
195. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
198. The Namesake* by Jhumpa Lahiri (I have this one on my shelf to read, FREE with an Audible audiobook trial)
205. Northanger Abbey* by Jane Austen (free on Kindle or with Audible audiobook trial)
213. One Hundred Years of Solitude* by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Free with an Audible Audiobook trial but with the Spanish names I found might be better to read in print so I could keep the characters straight)
222. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
224. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
226. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
244. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
248. The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien (another classic we own, so I should read it, right?)
249. R is for Ricochet* by Sue Grafton (do I have to start at the A in this series?)
254. A Room with a View* by E.M. Forster (free on Kindle or with Audible audiobook trial)
270. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
277. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
278. S is for Silence by Sue Grafton
301. A tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
309. A tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
331. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
334. The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
335. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (another Bronte I read most of in high school but want to reread and see if i can appreciate it more now)
Total books I want to read: 42
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You can find the original list of the books on the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge list at Going Down Swinging.
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