Today, let’s dig deep into our April reading prompt for our Rory Gilmore reading challenge to read one book per month from the Rory Gilmore reading list!
As I mentioned in last week’s post, there’s something special about reading classic books in the spring— the lush, timeless writing feels as poetic as nature in bloom. That’s why it will be our April theme!
Rory Gilmore loved to read great literature at Chilton and Yale, so it’s no surprise that there were so many classic books referenced on Gilmore Girls.
In fact, the main reason I started this challenge to read the books on Gilmore Girls in 2021 was to give myself a reason to pick up more classics. Now in our 6th year, I also see this as advocacy. At a time when reading classic books is down but their benefits remain high, this is a great way to make it easier and more fun.
Featured Book of the Month: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
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This month’s featured book is the easiest and most obvious choice. There are just certain books that readers tend to choose more heavily than others in this book club, and The Outsiders sits at the top of the list.
In this coming-of-age novel, Ponyboy Curtis, a member of the working-class Greasers, becomes caught in violent conflict with the wealthier Socs. After a tragic incident forces him into hiding, he begins to see beyond social divisions and gains a deeper understanding of loyalty, loss, and growing up.
On Gilmore Girls, you’ll find this short classic book in episode 2.7 and 3.21, when Lorelai refers to “Soc’s.” In 1.9, Dean and Rory discuss the movie adaptation and reference the character “Ponyboy.”
So, why is it so popular with our readers? I have my suspicions, but I’ll let you answer that question definitively:
10 More Classic Books to Read Like the Gilmore Girls This Spring
In the post linked below, you'll find descriptions to help you choose what to read yourself. You can also listen to the podcast episode linked in this post for my personal thoughts, fun facts, and recommendations about each one.
On the Gilmore Girls Reading List
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
A Room With a View by E.M. Forster
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Should Be On the Gilmore Girls Reading List
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
All the Classic Books on Gilmore Girls
Out of the 475+ books on the Gilmore Girls reading list, there are hundreds of books that can be considered classics.
I aimed to give you a list that’s comprehensive without overwhelming. I started with about 160 books I consider classics, then cut out poems and books that were more iconic in pop culture than in literature. I also cut some less popular works by the most famous classic authors, such as Dickens and Shakespeare.
My goal is for you to walk away from this month feeling like you read an essential classic (hence the title of this post).
That said, reasonable minds do differ! Here’s a thread with some of your classic book definitions:
The full list is normally behind a paywall, but I decided to leave this one open because reading classic books is so closely tied to my mission. I want more people to read more classics!
So, consider this a free preview of what you’d normally see as a paid subscriber. In addition to exclusive content like the list below, paid members get printables, like the 15-page printable index of 475+ books on Gilmore Girls by episode. Here’s a preview of a page:
Your subscription helps you commit more deeply to this fun yet meaningful reading challenge and provides a safe virtual space to engage while supporting the human work and mission behind it.
👍Means I read it and liked it
❤️Means I read it and loved it
👎Means I read it and didn’t like it
🟢Means I think it was a relatively easy read
On a side note, I’m thrilled with how many of these essential classic books I can rate for you! It’s all thanks to the years I’ve spent committed to this challenge. And, yes, that’s my subtle way of saying you can do it too, and it really is so satisfying.
Listen to the full podcast episode linked at the top of this post for more on what I loved or hated about these books!
1984 by George Orwell👍
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain👍🟢
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll👍🟢
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie👍🟢
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy❤️
The Art of War by Sun Tzu👍🟢
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Bambi: A Life in the Woods by Felix Salten
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath❤️🟢
Ben Hur by Lew Wallace
Beowulf by Anonymous/Seamus Heaney translation👎
Billy Budd & Other Tales by Herman Melville
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Brothers Karamazov by Leo Tolstoy
Call of the Wild by Jack London
Candide by Voltaire❤️🟢
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger👍🟢
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White❤️🟢
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess👎🟢
The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole👎
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Crucible by Arthur Miller👍🟢
Daisy Miller by Henry James
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller❤️🟢
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank❤️🟢
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley❤️🟢
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams❤️🟢
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck👍
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald❤️🟢
Hamlet by William Shakespeare❤️
Henry IV, Part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, Part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien👎
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer❤️
Inferno by Dante Alighieri
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare👍
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel👍🟢
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis❤️🟢
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov👎🟢
Lord of the Flies by William Golding👍🟢
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Macbeth by William Shakespeare❤️
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare👍
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka👍🟢
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf👍🟢
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen❤️🟢
The Odyssey by Homer❤️
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck❤️🟢
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez👎
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Othello by William Shakespeare👍
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton👍🟢
Paradise Lost by John Milton
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen❤️
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw👍🟢
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier❤️🟢
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Richard III by William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare❤️🟢
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf❤️🟢
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne👍🟢
Shane by Jack Shaefer👎🟢
Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut❤️🟢
The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway❤️🟢
Snow White by the Brothers Grimm
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner👍
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams👍🟢
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway👍
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee❤️🟢
Ulysses by James Joyce
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee👍🟢
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë👍
I’m reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde simply because I looked at my bookshelf and that’s the one that stood out to me, and it's the right time to finally pick it up. I’ve since heard it’s juicy and unputdownable, so fingers crossed!
What are you reading? Do you need help picking? Which of these books do you recommend to other readers?
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