It started with one of those silly little buzzfeed quizzes.
Depending on which list you read, it hovers between 334-339 books that are either seen in Rory Gilmore's hands or books that are referenced by Rory on the show Gilmore Girls.
I went through the list, and sadly was only able to claim having read about 30 of them.
But as I perused the list, clicking off the ones I had read in high school or otherwise in my past, I found myself saying over and over again how many of these books sound interesting, or sound like books I should read. A bunch of them were already on my shelf too, bought, but unread.
I tend to limit myself to basically two categories of books: fantasy/science fiction, and historical fiction. I don't read a lot of memoirs, history books, classics or books set in modern times. I never read poetry, political books, or feminist books. But I have been going through a phase where I don't really know what to read, to the point where I let my three year old randomly pick out a book for me the last time I went to the library!
Unless a friend recommends a book... I feel like I have only been reading the "popular" books.
Rory Gilmore, from Gilmore Girls, is an avid bibliophile, and I thought that she and I were kindred spirits in that area... only to discover that if we compared my and her lifetime reading list, you would find so much more variety and higher educational readings in her lifetime library.
I stick so much to the "safe zone" in books. I typically don't read books that scare me, that are sad, that could be boring... and I am missing out on so many books!
So... I decided to take this little (ha!) list as a challenge. There is no time limit, and I am not limiting myself to only reading these books. If there is a book from a favorite author that comes out or interests me, I am not going to turn it down, especially as the show ended many years ago, and there are always new books coming out that are worth reading.
Last night I started going through the list, in alphabetical order, seeing what the books are about, and how I can get a hold of them (library, free on kindle or if I have to buy them). In the first 32, there is one children's book, three short classics, three memoirs, three modern fictions, five historical fiction, three feminist, three non-fiction history, one religious book and one scary book. There are also two "classic challenge" books.
The classic challenge is a term I have given to the classics that are over 700 pages and are going to be the most challenging on the list.
To be clear, big books don't scare me, nor do classics, with their archaic language, footnotes and extensive vocabulary and characters. The combination does. To have to slow down my reading fun enough to get though a classic that is also large... daunting.
My plan is simple. For the most challenging books in my 300+, many year undertaking, I am going back to school... kind of. Itunes U has access to many free lectures done by prestigious universities, that I can download and listen to. They break down the readings into sections and then teach on them (like college) and this will give me small, concrete goals to help me check off my classic challenge books one at a time.
A large portion of the list are books I would never have picked for myself, as many of them are out of the "safe zone," but after just looking at the smallest portion of the list, I can honestly say that I think this will be a really good goal for me, giving me direction, and opening my eyes to new interesting books.
