When the new Netflix series Gilmore Girls: a Year in the Life was announced I was so excited I marked the date in my diary. But it turned out that last weekend was the only date I would be able to see my best friend before the end of the year, which is basically the only thing that could possibly have delayed me shotgunning those new episodes the second they became available. (The three-day delay was totally worth it. We had a fab weekend together at the seaside.)

Once I did get back home to our own sofa and TV, it didn’t take me long to watch the new mini series. And because it’s what I do every time I watch Gilmore Girls, I kept note of every book, author and play mentioned. I don’t think these should count towards the original Gilmore Girls Reading Challenge, so I haven’t followed my usual rule of limiting the list to only Rory and Lorelai’s reads. And I know I’m not the first to do this. But I figure it’s still interesting, and probably not just to me, so here goes.

Books and stories
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Call of the Wild by Jack London
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (could be reference to film)
Elements by Euclid
Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R R Martin (could be reference to TV series)
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (could be reference to film)
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Marcel Proust
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Le Livre de Mille Nuits et Une Nuit by J C Mardrus
The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Orations of American Orators
Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon (could be reference to TV series)
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Points of View by W Somerset Maugham
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (could be reference to film)
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Plays
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of King Richard III by William Shakespeare

Authors
Aeschylus
Edward Albee
Leonard Bernstein
Noam Chomsky
Winston Churchill
Gail Collins
Confucius
Lena Dunham
Dave Eggers
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
David Mamet
John McPhee
Dorothy Parker
David Foster Wallace
Edith Wharton
William Wordsworth

(NB There are also several musicals mentioned. I wasn’t sure whether to include those under plays. If you have thoughts on this, leave a comment, let me know!)

I was very excited when Rory referenced Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that makes me want to go back and make another list of all the films and TV shows referenced. It would be a very long list, but it’s also an excuse to rewatch the series!