2022 Reading Challenge for the Rory Gilmore Book List

Calling all fans of Gilmore Girls + books! This is the ultimate monthly reading challenge for the Rory Gilmore book list.

The Rory Gilmore book list is one of my most popular posts, and I post a lot of bookish Gilmore Girls content both here and on Bookstagram.

Follow my Gilmore Girls reading challenge @TheRoryGilmoreBookClub on Instagram.

So, since I was challenging myself to the goal of reading more books from the Rory Gilmore book list by monthly theme, I decided to go public with it and create The Rory Gilmore Book Club: a full reading challenge for the Rory Gilmore book list.

The themes for my reading challenge for the Rory Gilmore book list are pretty vague and were chosen so that you can really read a variety of books you want to read from the list.

Fun Fact: The Rory Gilmore Book Club is featured in the book But I'm a Gilmore! with exclusive interviews from cast, crew, and fans of Gilmore Girls.

Below are the monthly themes, with some personalized recommendations for each month (I spent SO much time researching the books for each month to give you the best recommendations), but you can also feel free to personalize your reading challenge for the Rory Gilmore book list with your own picks.

Table of Contents

Reading Challenge for the Rory Gilmore Book List

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January: A Short Book

Let's start this challenge with an easy prompt to catapult your success. There are so many short books (under 200 pages ) on the list. Below are a few I recommend you take a look at. If you want more options, take a close look at the Rory Gilmore book list for poetry, plays, and children's books (which is also February's theme).

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The Art of Living by Epictetus
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Candide by Voltaire
Oedipus Rex by Sophicles
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (a crowd pleaser)
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway (a short story)
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (literally ONE page)
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv (excellent on audio)
Night by Elie Wiesel (a must read)

February: A Children's Book

There are SO MANY children's books on the Rory Gilmore book list that I wrote an entire blog post about it. Below are a few I wanted to highlight as ones I thought you may be interested in picking up as an adult.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Deenie by Judy Blume
Eloise at the Plaza by Kay Thompson
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Nancy Drew and The Witch Tree Symbol by Carolyn Keene
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
Stuart Little by E.B. White

March: A Book Adapted to Film

There are also SO MANY book-to-film adaptions on the Gilmore Girls book list that I wrote a whole blog post about it. I love this particular challenge because you can both read and watch! Below are just a few options I thought may intrigue you:

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (the movie My Fair Lady - a favorite of mine)
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (I watched but never read, so I may pick this one.)
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells (on my list to read as well!)
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (you can watch the movie and/or the more recent Hulu adaptation)
Wild by Cheryl Strayed (loved the book and movie)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (my favorite read of 2021 and LOVED the movie too)
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Graduate by Charles Webb (great, classic movie)
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
Love Story by Erich Segal (another great, classic movie)
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you already watched, perhaps read?)

April: An Author You Heard of But Never Read Before

Obviously, this prompt is specific to each person. When thinking about the Rory Gilmore reading challenge and why we do it, I thought one reason is to read from an author we have heard of before, but never actually read. There are SO many opportunities on this list, both classic and modern to finally cross that author off your list.

Check the whole Rory Gilmore book list to find the right one for you, but below are a few on my personal radar for this month that may interest you as well:

Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Shining by Stephen King
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
R is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

May: A Diverse Book

I wanted to make sure we devoted a month of the Rory Gilmore reading challenge to diverse reads. There's not a TON on the list, but below the best options I found for you. Hopefully, there's at least one you can pick up this month!

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (excellent)
Night by Elie Wiesel (excellent)
Beloved by Toni Morrison (excellent)
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv (excellent on audio)
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (probably my pick)
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (an all time favorite)
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

June: A Classic Book

Rory Gilmore is a lover of great literature, so it's no surprise Rory's book list is completely overflowing with classic books to read. I liked using this prompt in June because it's the start of Summer, when people are relaxing more, and if you pick up something particularly challenging, you can spend time all Summer finishing it up if you need to.

Below are just a few options I wanted to draw your attention to:

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (referenced in Rory's valedictorian speech, if you want something really seasonal!)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (on my list)
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (everyone loves this one)
The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (an all-time favorite)
1984 by George Orwell
The Awakening by Kate Chopin (a great feminist read)
A Conf ederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (on my list)
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Emma by Jane Austen
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (everyone in my high school class enjoyed this one)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (an interesting one!)
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (on my list)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey (my high school class enjoyed this too)
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (on my list)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

July: A Book That's A Challenge

I picked "a challenge" for July also because in Summer, people are relaxing more, and if you pick up something particularly challenging, you can spend time all Summer finishing it up if you need to. I think it's really important to challenge ourselves in reading whether it's: a long book, a slow book, a genre outside your wheelhouse, a book you started but never finished, a difficult topic, an author you struggle with, and so on. I hope you will use this prompt to think about what feels challenging to YOU specifically, and then accept and crush your own challenge!

Below are a few options I thought may feel challenging to you, but I definitely recommend you peruse the full Gilmore Girls book list for this prompt:

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (a long read)
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Iliad by Homer
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (probably my pick)
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (difficult writing style, but loved by my high school class)
On the Road by Jack Kerouac (for some reason this always seemed challenging to me. I think it's the topic.)
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare (plus SO many more Shakespeare options on the full list)
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron (difficult subject matter)
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath (just seems like this may be a tough one)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (perhaps the ultimate challenge)
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by GregoryMaguire (long book plus the genre is challenging to me)
The Inferno by Dante Alighieri (just feels like a challenge to me)
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson (I've heard this is great but parts about architecture are slow and challenging.)

August: A Modern Bestseller

One of my absolute favorite things about the Rory Gilmore book challenge is how many MODERN classics it includes. It really forces me to finally get to those books I always heard of but never actually read. Below are a few options for you to consider:

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt (great book)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (probably my pick)
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (an all-time favorite)
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (a slower read, but very good!)
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

September: A Book You Never Heard of Before

In researching the full Gilmore Girls book list, I realized there were so many important books I had never heard of before that seemed REALLY good. This challenge is a great chance to actually read one of those books. Of course, this is a completely personal challenge specific to each person, but below are a few I thought may fit the bill for you:

Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker (features heavily in the show, but maybe you never heard of it)
Empire Falls by Richard Russo (Pulitzer Prize winner from an excellent author)
Marathon Man by William Goldman (sounded interesting to me)
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett (also sounded interesting to me)
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? by Horace McCoy (features heavily in the show)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (I hadn't heard of this one, but loved it!)
The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as a History by Norman Mailer (features heavily in the show)

October: A Spooky Book

It seems like everyone loves to read something spooky in October, and I have soo many options for mysteries, thrillers, horror, and other spooky reads this month for you to consider from Rory's reading list:

Dracula by Bram Stoker
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (great book)
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (an all-time favorite)
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (an excellent classic thriller)
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Carrie by Stephen King
Christine by Stephen King
The Crucible by Arthur Miller (probably my pick)
Cujo by Stephen King
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Shining by Stephen King
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

November: A Non-Fiction Book

Since November is generally considered to by "Non-Fiction November" in the book work, I thought this was a great time to kill two birds with one stone, and also to make sure you get at least one non-fiction read in this year from the Rory Gilmore book challenge. Below are a few options:

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (truly life changing)
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (an all-time favorite)
I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron (on my list)
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain (so good)
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles
Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays by David Foster Wallace (looks really interesting)
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris (a great start to holiday reading)
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett (I could not put this one down)
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (a memoir of grief)
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy (pairs with Truth & Beauty)
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

December: A Book on Your To Be Read (TBR) List

For the last month of this year's Rory Gilmore reading challenge, I thought it was important to close out the year by reading something that's STILL on your TBR list, so you really feel accomplished when you complete it.

Of course, this is another very personal challenge, so you should peruse Rory Gilmore's full book list to find the one that's right for you, but below are a few on my personal TBR list that may interest you too:

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
A Movable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Instagram Story Templates to Track Your Reading Challenge

I love creating bookish Instagram story templates, so I created two where we can track our reading challenge for the Rory Gilmore book list. Feel free to save them to your phone and use it by super-imposing book covers on the prompts for each month and/or filling out the book review form.

Be sure to follow and tag me @TheRoryGilmoreBookClub! I love to re-share your successes.