Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge

I like this Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge idea some friend posted to Facebook. (Sorry I can't remember who!) I like this list because it's quirky and somewhat less dude-centric than a lot of you-should-have-read-these-100-books-to-be-worthy types of lists. It is pretty white, though. The person I snagged the list from, snagged it from The Book Club Forum. I fixed a few obvious typos. I wish whoever compiled the list included only things that were actually read, preferably by Rory, not stuff like random movies titles or characters Lorelei blurts out.

The ones I haven't read are in bold, and I've added commentary to a few. By my count, I've read or started 182 of the 339 titles.

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
My dad really wanted me to read this. I might even have it at home somewhere.
25. Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
I might have started it.
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
    I read a bunch of this one, well over the requisite 50 pages, but couldn't force myself to finish it.
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
    I started this one a long time ago, and couldn't stay with it.
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. The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
    I probably read one or the other of the EW volumes.
43. A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
44. Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
45. The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
46. Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
47. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
    Started, couldn't get into it.
48. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
49. Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac
50. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
51. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
52. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
53. Cujo by Stephen King
54. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
55. Daisy Miller by Henry James
56. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
57. David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
58. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
59. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
60. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
61. Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
62. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
63. Deenie by Judy Blume
64. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
65. The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
66. The Divine Comedy by Dante
67. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
68. Don Quixote by Cervantes
69. Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry
70. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
71. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
72. Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
73. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
74. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
75. Eloise by Kay Thompson
76. Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
77. Emma by Jane Austen
78. Empire Falls by Richard Russo
79. Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
    Does it matter that I haven't read a lot of these books this century?
80. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
81. Ethics by Spinoza
82. Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
83. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
84. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
85. Extravagance by Gary Krist
86. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
87. Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
88. The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
89. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
90. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
91. The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
92. Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
93. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
94. Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
95. Fletch by Gregory McDonald
96. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
97. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
98. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
99. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
100. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
101. Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
102. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
103. Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
104. George W. Bushisms: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
105. Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
106. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
     I'm pretty sure I started this, but found it overwrought.
107. The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
108. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
109. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
110. Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
111. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
112. The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
113. The Gospel According to Judy Blume
114. The Graduate by Charles Webb
115. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
     True story: I read the Cliff's Notes instead of the book in high school.
116. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
117. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
     I think so, anyway. Ask the NY State Regents board.
118. The Group by Mary McCarthy
119. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
     I'm pretty sure having run follow spot a couple dozen times for a production in German counts. "Sein, oder nicht sein?"
120. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
121. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
122. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
     The first part, anyway, but I'm pretty sure that's all most people read.
123. Heart of Darkness by Joseph ConradMaybe? I've been reading 50-100 books a year for about 40 years, so I don't always remember.
124. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
125. Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
126. Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
127. Henry V by William Shakespeare
     I think having worked on productions of the Henrys counts. I might or might not have run spot for Hank Cinq, but I definitely saw it a bunch of time.
128. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
129. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
130. Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
     This is the one where he's an elf, right? I read at least some of it on a plane home from Brazil.
131. The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
132. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
     Started reading it, but had to put it down because it was too miserable, or as my cousin and Grandmother described it, "dreary."
133. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
134. How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
135. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
136. How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
137. Howl by Allen Ginsberg
138. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
139. The Iliad by Homer
140. I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
This seems like the kind of thing I would have read, but I don't remember it.
141. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
142. Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
143. Ironweed by William J. Kennedy
     The summer I lived in Albany, where a lot of his books take place.
144. It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
145. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
146. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
147. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
148. The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
149. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
     Does a graphic novel version count?
150. Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
151. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
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. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
162. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
163. The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
164. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
165. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
     Bleh. I probably even got through it at some point.
166. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
167. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
168. The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
169. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
170. The Love Story by Erich Segal
171. Macbeth by William Shakespeare
172. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
173. The Manticore by Robertson Davies
174. Marathon Man by William Goldman
175. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
176. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
177. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
178. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
179. The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
180. Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
181. The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
182. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
183. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
184. The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
185. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
186. The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
187. Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
188. A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
189. Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
190. A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
191. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
192. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
193. Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
194. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
195. My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
196. My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
Maybe I should read this one.
197. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
198. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
     I think so.
199. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco Tried.
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
     I'm pretty sure I started it.
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
Second reference to Dawn Powell. Maybe I should look into her books.
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. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
     I didn't just watch the movie or musical, either. I'm pretty sure I read this all the way through. Or maybe it was The Prince and the Pauper...
214. On the Road by Jack KerouacI gave it a shot at some point.
215. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
216. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
217. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
218. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
219. Oracle Night by Paul Auster
220. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
221. Othello by Shakespeare
222. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
223. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
224. Out of Africa by Isak Dineson
     Probably started, even if I didn't get very far. Or maybe I read it all the way through. In the 1980s.
225. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
226. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
227. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
228. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
229. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
230. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
231. Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
232. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
233. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
     Definitely stuck a toe in.
234. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
235. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
236. The Portable Nietzsche by Friedrich Nietzsche
237. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
238. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
239. Property by Valerie Martin
240. Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
241. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
242. Quattrocento by James Mckean
243. A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
244. Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
245. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
246. The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
247. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
248. Rebecca by Daphne du MaurierProbably started it.
249. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
250. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
251. Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
252. The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
253. R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
254. Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
255. Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
256. Roman Fever by Edith Wharton
257. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
258. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
259. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
260. Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
261. Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
262. Sanctuary by William Faulkner
263. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
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 Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
271. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
272. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
273. Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
274. Sexus by Henry Miller
275. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
276. Shane by Jack Schaefer
277. The Shining by Stephen King
278. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
279. S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
280. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
281. Small Island by Andrea Levy
282. Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
283. Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
284. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
285. The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
286. Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
287. The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
288. Songbook by Nick Hornby
289. The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
290. Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
291. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
292. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
293. Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
294. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
295. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
296. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
297. Stuart Little by E. B. White
298. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
299. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
     Started. Ditched.
300. Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
301. Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
302. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles DickensStarted. Ditched.
303. Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
304. Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
305. Time and Again by Jack Finney
306. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
307. To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
308. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
309. The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
310. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
311. The Trial by Franz Kafka
312. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
313. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
314. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
315. Ulysses by James Joyce
316. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
317. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
     Surely I gave this book a whirl at some point.
318. Unless by Carol Shields
319. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
320. The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
321. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
     Started. You know how some people can't get enough of those rich descriptions? I can.
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
Do I get points for having been interviewed in Punk Planet?
329. What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson BollesOkay, not the 2005 edition, but whatever.
330. What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
331. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
332. Who Moved My Cheese? 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
     Started. Couldn't get into.
338. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

If I hadn't spent so much time going through this damned list just to note what I had and hadn't read--and adding formatting, because I'm a little compulsive, it would be fun to do some additional analysis of authors by gender, NJ jr. high and NY high school curricula, plays, etc.