I love Rory's bookishness.
As someone who grew up with my nose more or less constantly wedged deep in a book myself, I get it. Throughout seven seasons of "Gilmore Girls," Rory was seen reading — and heard namedropping — quite a few books (at least 338, according to one writer's tally). And we can only imagine that since we last saw Rory back in 2007, she's been busy adding to this number.
A lot of great literature has come out in the last nine years. So which books made it onto Rory's reading list, and what titles can we expect her to ostentatiously reference in the upcoming revival? Here are 29 of our best guesses.
"Hard Choices" by Hillary Clinton
We can't even pretend that our favorite mother-daughter duo would vote for anyone else in the her-storic upcoming election. Rory's been repping Hils since '02, back when she and Dean (because, as a human golden retriever, he did whatever Rory wanted) would watch her speeches on C-SPAN.
"Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn
She didn't want to buy into the hype. She really tried her best to abstain. But Rory definitely caved and turned this thriller's pages as fast as anyone. (The movie, she will maintain, was a disappointment.)
"Not That Kind of Girl" by Lena Dunham
You KNOW Rory loves "Girls." A fellow white woman of privilege (Yale is actually cheaper than Dunham's alma mater, Oberlin) struggling to find her place in the world, and as a writer? Rory's all over that shit.
"Go Set a Watchman" by Harper Lee
Rory definitely camped out in front of Barnes & Nobles for the release of this hotly anticipated "To Kill A Mockingbird" surprise sorta-sequel (it was actually "Mockingbird's" first draft). And she, like everyone else, was likely disappointed by it.
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson
She devoured the full "Millennium" trilogy and also chuckled gleefully at Nora Ephron's grammar-themed parody in The New Yorker, "The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut."
“Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church” by the Boston Globe Investigative Staff
A seminal work of modern journalism, this investigation conducted by The Boston Globe exposed the prevalence of Catholic priests' sexual abuse of children. It also won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003, the stuff of Rory's dizziest daydreams.
"Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami
Honestly, I don't think Rory ~gets~ Murakami (and neither do I), but she's still read his work. When it comes to this Japanese author's appeal, The New York Times said it best: "Readers emerge several hundred pages later as if from a trance, convinced they've made contact with something significant, if not entirely sure what that something is."
"The Pale King" by David Foster Wallace
Shockingly, Wallace's "Infinite Jest" (the book you're likeliest to find on every fuckboy's shelf) didn't make it into Rory's 338 pre-existing literary references, even though it was published in 1996. Now that book is so ubiquitous, it's moment as a ~hip~ reference has passed, but Wallace's posthumously published "Pale King" could well make a revival appearance.
"The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz
Okay, so this was one was technically published in '07, but it, too, hasn't been mentioned on "Gilmore Girls" (yet). We'll assume it was still on Rory's to-read list when the series finale rolled around. (And for good reason, FYI; this book is spectacular.)
"Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen
Don't attempt comparing it to his other landmark work, "The Corrections," in front of Rory. She'll smite you for doing so quicker than Franzen can diss Oprah Winfrey.
"A Visit From the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan
A faultless feat of postmodernism, Rory says. Incendiary! Symphonic!
"Room" by Emma Donoghue
Rory thought it was brilliant. She would also likely find it difficult to decide which book had the best child narrator: Donoghue's "Jack" or Mark Haddon's "Christopher." Or perhaps Villalobos' "Tochtli"? To pick a favorite is like "Sophie's Choice," she'll say.
"The Buddha In the Attic" by Julie Otsuka
This novella tells the harrowing story of Japanese picture brides in the early 1900s. Rory finished the slim book by the end of her second cup of morning coffee, but its haunting effects were longer lasting.
"And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life" by Charles J. Shields
Because what's more hardcore-writerly than a writer reading another writer's account of another writer's life?
"The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt
Hate on Tartt all you will, but Rory definitely ordered an advanced copy of this 11-years-in-the-making Pulitzer Prize winner, and attended a couple readings to boot.
"Blue Nights" by Joan Didion
Unless they're written by a historical figure — say, Benjamin Franklin or Gertrude Stein — Rory isn't likely to go for a straight-up memoir (although pseudo-autiobiographies, like "The Bell Jar," do make her list). If it's written by someone like Dunham or Didion, though, she'll make an exception.
"Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coates, a journalist at The Atlantic and winner of the prestigious MacArthur Genius Award, wrote this 2015 book as a letter to his teenage son about the realities of being Black in the United States, drawing partly from his own youth in Baltimore. Coates' work is a highlight of Rory's literary journalism collection, for sure.
"Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow
As soon as Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Hamilton" became the definitive pop-culture reference of 2015-2016, you can bet Rory went and snagged the biography that started it all.
"Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide" by Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof
The husband-and-wife team are former New York Times reporters who conducted this sweeping study on the oppression of women and girls in the modern developing world — and are Rory's peak #relationshipgoals.
"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
Again, any highly praised book that is also a work of journalism WILL be on Rory's bookshelf, without exception.
"The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenides
"It was no 'Middlesex,'" Rory would sigh upon being asked her opinion (or, more likely, self-electing to offer it up). "It didn't measure up to 'The Virgin Suicides' either, for that matter. But it had its poignant moments."
"All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Overly sentimental, is Rory's opinion. Though she can still acknowledge its merit as a masterful example of historical fiction.
"The First Bad Man" by Miranda July
You just know Rory's copy of "No One Belongs Here More Than You" is dog-eared and scribbed in AF. So when July announced the publication of her debut novel in 2015, of course she was first in line to buy it.
"MaddAddam" by Margaret Atwood
Because obviously. Rory must've freaked when she found out the series was being adapted into an HBO show. (On a semi-related note, TV culture has changed SO MUCH since 2007. I feel certain there'll be some Netflix binge-watching references from Lorelai and Rory in the revival, and it'll be kinda jarring to hear.)
"Boy, Snow, Bird" by Helen Oyeyemi
Oyeyemi is a modern-day Emily Dickinson in Rory's book. She also loves the gothic tropes of the author's 2009 work, "White Is for Witching."
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