The Rory Gilmore Challenge

One of my bookish IG friends recently started a challenge--you may have heard of it--among our other book-loving IG friends. The challenge is to read the 339 books that Rory Gilmore was seen reading or mentioned throughout the course of The Gilmore Girls series (or at least try to). 

Here is a link to the entire list of books in the challenge: Rory's Books. It's a daunting list for sure, but I love the fact that working on this challenge has gotten me to read books that I most likely would never have picked up otherwise. I just started the challenge in July, so I haven't finished a ton of these books.Plus I'm reading other choices too. But I am really enjoying reading out of my comfort zone!

Here are the books that I have read in prior years before I started the challenge:

1. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

2. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

3. Babe by Dick King-Smith

4. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

5. The Crucible by Arthur Miller

6. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

7. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

8. Eloise by Kay Thompson

9. Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol

10. Gidget by Fredrick Kohner

11. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

12.  Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky

13. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

14. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

15. Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee

16. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

17. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen

18. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

19. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

20. The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

21. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

22. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

23. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

24. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

25. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin

26. Night by Elie Wiesel

27. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

28. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

29. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

30.  Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers

31. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

32.  Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

33. The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum

34. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

35. Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers

36. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

37. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

38. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

39. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

40. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

41. Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten

42. The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum

And from July through the first two weeks of August, I have added the following books to the "read" list:

    

And here's what I have lined up to read next:

   

   

Have you ever tried the Rory Gilmore Challenge?

What are you reading at the moment?

Love and happiness <3 Holly

Summer Reading. Oh, My!

One thing I love about the summer is reading. Pleasure reading--getting to the books that I've been dying to read. During the school year, I start off with good reading intentions. My reading time wanes from reading a little every night to not reading at all for weeks. In the summer, I can read to my heart's desire. It is so exciting for me to be able to just pick up a book whenever I feel like it and dive in. 

This year I gave myself a reading goal on Good Reads. My goal is 40 books read in 2015. I think this is a doable goal. I am a few books behind, according to Good Reads, but I always read a lot more in one month during the summer than I do during the school year. 

I also joined my friend Stephanie @owl_on_the_shelf for a reading challenge she started. It's the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge based on the 339 books Rory was seen reading during the Glimore Girls run. I have read more books on the list than I thought, but there are still so many to read! Many of them are classics that I just haven't gotten around to reading, so I'm excited to add some of these to my list. I plan of reading these two first:

  

If you want to check out the books in the Rory Gilmore challenge, click here. There's a list where you can check off books you have read from the challenge.

Here are some highlights from my reading during 2015:

Currently Reading

Books I've Finished this Summer

Books I've Read So Far for My Reading Challenge (before summer):

6. My Name is Not Angelica by Scott O'Dell

7. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by: Marie Condo

8. Smile by Raina Telemeier

9. The Color of My Words by: Lynn Joseph

10. Dead to The World (iZombie #1) by Chris Roberston

11. I Was Here by Gale Forman

12. Brown Girl Dreaming by: Jacqueline Woodson

13. Legend by: Marie Lu

14. Still Alice by: Lisa Genova

15. Mockingbird by: Katherine Erskine

16. Pictures of Hollis Woods by: Patricia Reilly Giff

I think I'm doing pretty well so far! 

What are you currently reading? Any books you've loved reading recently?

Love and happiness <3 Holly