Oy with the poodles already!
September 18, 2016 12:18 PM   Subscribe

In anticipation of the November Gilmore Girls revival, and assuming you've completed your preparatory rewatch (FanFare), here's a list of all 339 books referenced by the show so you can find a few to add to your reading list and keep you busy until November, or check it out it in check-off list form to see how you stack up.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (57 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
Aw, man, they're both alphabetical. I was hoping for chronological within the series so we could see the ebb and flow.
posted by Etrigan at 12:50 PM on September 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


I have read 194 because apparently Rory and I have the same taste, and I've found a few to add to my reading list (notably that Eleanor Roosevelt bio). Also I would like to take this moment to remind you that Dean is the worst.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:59 PM on September 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


34% here. I love that I could remember the scenes that many of these books were mentioned. and yes, dean is the worst
posted by [tk] at 1:02 PM on September 18, 2016


Ugh, I can't stand Logan either. She just has the worst taste in guys. The only one I've liked is Marty, who she is not at all interested in. Logan is way too full of himself.
posted by peacheater at 1:14 PM on September 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


31% I love lists of books. I like Logan in general, but not for Rory. Can't wait to be appalled anew at horrible nutrition and, to a lesser degree, fashion choices.
posted by theora55 at 1:26 PM on September 18, 2016


I have never watched this show and I probably won't. Yet, I'm in the top 1% and pretty sure that means at least one writer and I could be best friends. Carol Shields? Shirley Jackson? Mary McCarthy? Nickle and Dimed? Plus the usual suspects.
posted by Lil Bit of Pepper at 1:27 PM on September 18, 2016


Logan is the one who comes closest to understanding that Rory is the reprehensible product of an entire town encouraging her narcissism. I love the show for the supporting characters, but she's the worst and treats people very badly.

I've read slightly more than average of her book list.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:33 PM on September 18, 2016 [14 favorites]


Jonathan Safron Foer must be very pleased
posted by beerperson at 1:37 PM on September 18, 2016


Maybe he'll leave his wife for Rory, she apparently likes that sort of thing.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:44 PM on September 18, 2016 [11 favorites]


also many of these are referenced in the show as films rather than books
posted by beerperson at 1:44 PM on September 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


As someone who loves Gilmore Girls, Supernatural and The Good Wife, it's hard for me to pick between Dean and Logan, though Heroes' downward slide after the first season certainly puts Jess out of the running by association.

(Of course, if we were talking Veronica Mars, Team Logan all the way.)

Good grief, those five shows account for 704 episodes of television plus the VM movie. What am I doing with my life?? 80/339 in the book list department though, which is a little above average. That's something at least.
posted by Pryde at 2:37 PM on September 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


many of these are referenced in the show as films rather than books
Does that mean it counts if I've seen the movie/play? There are a bunch that I've seen but not read (including all of the included Shakespeare).
posted by mbrubeck at 2:38 PM on September 18, 2016


You guys. Dean is obviously the worst.

That I spent 10 minutes taking this quiz and reading this post instead of working on the pile of 6 library books sitting next to me, most of which are due back imminently, is like a microcosm of my priorities in life. But Rory and I have similar taste, for sure: I've read 140.
posted by something something at 2:42 PM on September 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


The fun is to pick out books that almost nobody else read but 'us' -- "Old School", "The Polysyllabic Spree", "The Song Reader" by Lisa Tucker...
posted by of strange foe at 3:07 PM on September 18, 2016


What, Marty is also the worst. "Friendzoned all my life," shut up. At least he's halfway respectful about it, I guess? But he kind of also takes it out on Rory. She really does have bad taste in men; it's the only real problem I have with the show. Well, that and the perpetual one-upping shark-jumping they seem to do in the last two seasons.
posted by sockermom at 3:36 PM on September 18, 2016


During my last rewatch, it occurred to me that all of Rory's boyfriends are kind of awful, but they also each are completely perfect and true-to-life for the life-stage at which Rory dated them.

If you are female, I bet either you or a friend had a Dean for a first boyfriend. The guy who is mostly nice, and quite romantic, but not smart enough for her and pretty jealous - not because he's a controlling person, but because they're young and immature.

So then Rory is feeling confined by the relationship and realizing Dean can't quite keep up with her, so Jess is appealing. He's the Bad Boy who is Rory's intellectual equal, but they can't quite make it work because they don't get each other on an emotional level - they both have absentee dads, but he's only got the flaky mother, and she's basically loved by an entire town and extended family. So it doesn't work out.

I think Logan is really interesting for Rory as a college boyfriend because he's the first of her boyfriends that acts like an adult and treats her like one (his frat-boy ways notwithstanding). He is the first one to see that she's actually more Slytherin than Hufflepuff (ie, more ambitious and self-centered than her sweet good-girl persona lets on) and he treats her thus. He really encourages her to go after what she wants (I'm ignoring the 7th season, as we all should).

As for Marty, since I'm ignoring the events of the 7th season (where he showed himself to be a pretty odious "Nice Guy"), I want them to meet again ten years after graduation and hit it off.

I have maybe given this more thought than it deserves.
posted by lunasol at 3:48 PM on September 18, 2016 [18 favorites]


I like to imagine that after Lucy dumped Marty, she moved to New York and changed her name to Chloe.
posted by Pendragon at 4:00 PM on September 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


What, Marty is also the worst. "Friendzoned all my life," shut up. At least he's halfway respectful about it, I guess? But he kind of also takes it out on Rory. She really does have bad taste in men; it's the only real problem I have with the show. Well, that and the perpetual one-upping shark-jumping they seem to do in the last two seasons.
Huh, I think I might have actually not gotten that far with my watching (at least this time around). Currently towards the end of Season 5, and until now Marty has been genuinely nice. It's disappointing that he takes a friendzone turn.
posted by peacheater at 4:04 PM on September 18, 2016


I know a thirtysomething Rory, who has the same large circle of uncritically adoring people, and she is just about as opinionated and insufferable as you'd imagine.

I watched some of the later episodes with my husband and we were both horrified at how Star Hollow lauds Rory - what about that graduation festival? Has no other child from Star Hollow ever graduated? And my husband was like, but everything in this show is shown solely through completely self absorbed Gilmore eyes, which now I think about it makes me kind of wonder about everything in the show. Are all those kooky characters like that at all? Are the Gilmores just really photogenic unreliable sort-of-narrators?
posted by glitter at 4:13 PM on September 18, 2016 [11 favorites]


For New Yorkers, Word bookstore in Greenpoint has a bookclub exclusively devoted to books mentioned or shown on the show. Sometimes it's weird.
posted by retrograde at 4:36 PM on September 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


1. I am so glad to discover I am not alone in my Rory hate. She and Lorelai are such assholes. I adore the show, but God what horrible self-involved, self-indulgent people. I feel like Janice's rant to Cady about not admitting to being a Mean Girl totally applies to Rory. I also don't quite get what is soooo special about her, which I think is partly because Alexis Bledel isn't the most dynamic actress on the planet and partly because reading a lot seems to make every admissions officer in the country salivate. Mitchum may have been a dick, but he wasn't totally wrong about it.

2. It drives me batty that Rory mispronounces Wodehouse when discussing PG Wodehouse. It's something a Rory would know and was one of those moments where you really felt the trying-hard-to-cram-references-we've-heard-but-don't-know in the writing. Similar to how Loralei's level of erudition varies widely. She talks about reading the Motley Crue tell-all (on the list!) and never reading the newspaper and then makes cracks about Clarence Thomas's silence on the bench (actually just one crack made twice several seasons apart -- oh, what you notice when binging).

Stopping now. I have a lot of Feelings about Gilmore Girls. Oh, but Paris totally rules.
posted by HonoriaGlossop at 5:11 PM on September 18, 2016 [9 favorites]


59.

Rory does not read enough sci fi for my tastes.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:13 PM on September 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


Hello. Luke is also the worst. In fact, this is a good show about a funny cook at an inn, her nemesis, the concierge, and the owners: a hilariously evil old rich couple. Thank you and goodbye.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:39 PM on September 18, 2016 [10 favorites]


Speak for yourself.
posted by peacheater at 6:10 PM on September 18, 2016


Apparently I'm not as well read as I thought - only hit 50 of the books on this list. I'm kind of half looking forward to the reboot and half dreading it because its pretty likely they'll just make it fucking awful, like when they rebooted X-files and I just couldn't stand it. I hated the later seasons of Gilmore Girls. The whole Lorelai-Luke-Christopher thing drove me nuts, and Rory is kind of an asshole. But I loved the show anyway. Not sure what that says about me...
posted by FireFountain at 6:17 PM on September 18, 2016


i got in the 1st per centile. I think Jess was the best.
posted by PinkMoose at 8:19 PM on September 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


22...and one is Robert's Rules of Order!
posted by chapps at 9:37 PM on September 18, 2016


Only 91, but that's 11th percentile ...
posted by lunasol at 10:24 PM on September 18, 2016


136, which is top 3%.

I'm missing a lot of the non-fiction.
posted by minsies at 2:22 AM on September 19, 2016


Is there an episode where a serial killer esque creepy guy is in Lorelai's house or did I dream that?

Rory is insufferable in later seasons but it's also weird how Lorelai is all upset about the DAR and having rich friends and I didn't raise you like that but at the same time totally lies and hides how broke she is around the firefly inn purchasing. Like having sandwich fixings at home is a horrific social failing. It's amazing they could afford their house and car at all with the amount they spent on takeaway food. Suki also missed all the stuff in chef school about costing meals, it's mind boggling how much she throws away. I hope the Independence Inn and then the Firefly had very very high nightly rates.
posted by kitten magic at 4:06 AM on September 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


The Churchill biographies are Richard's, not Rory's

I question this whole exercise
posted by beerperson at 5:13 AM on September 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


If Paris and Rory aren't GFs, or clearly and explicitly ex-GFs, or occasional hookups, I won't be able to even.
posted by signal at 5:32 AM on September 19, 2016 [6 favorites]


She and Lorelai are such assholes. I adore the show, but God what horrible self-involved, self-indulgent people.

This. A million times this. My wife and daughter have watched this show over and over and over and over thanks to DVDs and DVRs, and resultingly I have probably seen the entire series all the way through about four times myself. Long about the third time through, I finally realized that Lorelai and Rory are absolutely horrible people. Rory, at least, gets a smidgen of come-uppance with her annus horribilis, but Lorelai is the worst.

I ticked off 64 books (16%).
posted by briank at 5:39 AM on September 19, 2016


72. Not bad.
posted by Sophie1 at 6:38 AM on September 19, 2016


Paris is better than all of Rory's boyfriends. She might actually be too good for Rory.
posted by emjaybee at 6:48 AM on September 19, 2016 [5 favorites]


My biggest gear-grinding with this show is that Rory is obsessed with getting into Harvard since birth... but she doesn't play a sport, or an instrument, and somewhere in season 2 seems sincerely shocked that colleges expect you to have a well-rounded set of extracurriculars IN ADDITION to just reading a lot and getting good grades.
posted by nakedmolerats at 7:30 AM on September 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


It'd be a really saccharin show if they were good people. Their horribleness is necessary to keep it from being unwatchably dull feel-good TV movie stuff.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:47 AM on September 19, 2016 [7 favorites]


After two decades I'm glad we're finally allowed to admit these two are a pair of psychopathic grifters.
posted by bleep at 9:32 AM on September 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Two decades ? Are you a time traveler ? How's president Trump ?
posted by Pendragon at 11:03 AM on September 19, 2016


Excuse me "sixteen years" jeez.
posted by bleep at 11:08 AM on September 19, 2016


Sixteen ? The show ran from 2000 to 2007 ? So even if you don't count the last season (which was awful) , it's only been ten years.
posted by Pendragon at 11:10 AM on September 19, 2016


paris is unquestionable better for rory than any of her shitty bfs (jess was the best of the bunch and dean was the absolute worst)

the real protagonists of gilmore girls should be paris and emily imo
posted by burgerrr at 11:25 AM on September 19, 2016


My biggest gear-grinding with this show is that Rory is obsessed with getting into Harvard since birth... but she doesn't play a sport, or an instrument, and somewhere in season 2 seems sincerely shocked that colleges expect you to have a well-rounded set of extracurriculars IN ADDITION to just reading a lot and getting good grades.

I actually thought the show dealt with this well. They had the whole storyline about how Lorelai didn't really understand what went into college admissions, because she didn't go to college - she was shocked that Rory didn't only apply to Harvard, which was a bit much, but it drives the point home. There's been a lot written (here on metafilter, even!) about how smart kids whose parents didn't go to college are unprepared for the admissions process, and it feels believable that Rory would have this kind of shock upon transferring to Chilton and learning what was really involved.
posted by lunasol at 11:27 AM on September 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


You know who got the rawest deal on Gilmore Girls ? Lane.
posted by Pendragon at 11:27 AM on September 19, 2016 [13 favorites]


excuse me Lane got Michele to dress like a jogging unabomber and sneak a Belle & Sebastian single into her bag

Lane is the most successful person on television
posted by beerperson at 11:31 AM on September 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


Well, I felt constantly sorry for her.
posted by Pendragon at 11:32 AM on September 19, 2016


You know who got the rawest deal on Gilmore Girls ? Lane.

Oh hell YES. I will just link to my standard rant on this because it is my bĂȘte noir with this show.
posted by lunasol at 11:33 AM on September 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


paris is unquestionable better for rory than any of her shitty bfs (jess was the best of the bunch and dean was the absolute worst)

I understand where this kind of sentiment is coming from, but the only two romantic relationships I was really invested in were Richard and Emily and Paris and Doyle. I loved Paris and Doyle together.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:44 AM on September 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


Paris and Doyle were great, a match made in heaven.
posted by Pendragon at 11:53 AM on September 19, 2016


66 out of 339.

Also, Team Jess 4EVA!
posted by gsh at 11:56 AM on September 19, 2016


I actually liked the last season of the show. My Gilmore beefs are 1) Lane and 2) Luke's baffling decision to keep his surprise daughter a secret from Lorelei.

I've come to terms with the reality that I'm really easy to please when it comes to television shows I've invested myself in, though. Typically I love everything, find out a wide swath of people don't like certain aspects of the thing and am confused, consider the complaint and retrospectively understand it, but decide to still like it anyway. Like the last episode of Battlestar Galactica. Or how everyone hates Xander.
posted by something something at 11:58 AM on September 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm only at season 4, but University Rory is quickly becoming insufferable. Refuses to study in the library because it doesn't have the right 'vibe'. Insists that she can only study under one particular tree. Actually offended that not every boy at Yale is slavering over her.

Writes really mean ad hominems into her theatre reviews (comparing a dancer to a hippo? WTF?).
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:48 PM on September 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


Wait, what happened to Lane? From my perspective, she just escaped the tyrannical grip of her insane religious lunatic of a mother. As soon as she gets her own place, everything wil be great, right?

Right?

....right?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:54 PM on September 19, 2016


OMG I just got to the episode where Madeline Albright appears in Rory's 21st birthday dream sequence, I FORGOT ABOUT THAT.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:51 PM on September 19, 2016


55 comments and nobody has given any love to Kirk? I guess he wasn't much of a reader, but he was definitely one of the best parts of the show.

Also I always felt terrible for Max Medina. His relationship with the Gilmores was a lot like being a viewer of the show: you're kind of enchanted and in love with Lorelai and Rorie and their wacky life, but if you actually had to deal with them in day-to-day reality you would go insane.
posted by vytae at 7:45 PM on September 19, 2016 [5 favorites]


55 comments and nobody has given any love to Kirk? I guess he wasn't much of a reader, but he was definitely one of the best parts of the show.

You have good taste.
posted by paperback version at 11:06 PM on September 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Don't remember the Donald Kagan reference but I bet it came from Grandpa Gilmore.
posted by whuppy at 7:12 AM on September 20, 2016


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