Guilty & Not-So-Guilty Pleasures

December 15, 2016 (350/366)

OK, I'll admit it: I binge-watch Gilmore Girls on Netflix. It's quite a guilty pleasure and, even though I don't completely identify with either Lorelai or Rory, I do thrive on their witty banter, especially the cultural and literary references.

Although Rory's poor life choices annoy me, she and I do share a not-so-guilty pleasure: a passion for reading. Next week, students and staff at Pewaukee High School will be encouraged to pledge to read at least twenty-two minutes per day -- the equivalent of the average time it takes to watch one show on Netflix. It isn't that we are denying ourselves the pleasure of watching our favorite programs, but rather than watching "just one more" episode, perhaps we can spend some time with a book instead. I was honored to work with our literacy coach to create this video explaining the health benefits of reading everyday. The demands of work and school are stressful enough without adding the 21st Century pressure of constant connectivity. #READ22, aka the Pirate Reading Pledge, is a promise to ourselves:

"I pledge 22 minutes. I pledge to read: to read in a book, to read in a magazine, to read on a computer, to read on any device. I pledge to read fanfiction and guilty pleasure novels, prose and poetry, fantasy and nonfiction, websites and blogs. I pledge 22 minutes of my day to slow my world -- 22 minutes for my health, 22 minutes for my happiness, 22 minutes for my education, 22 minutes for my well-being. I pledge 22 minutes to read."

In her valedictory speech, Rory Gilmore affirmed the escape that reading provides: “I live in two worlds, one is a world of books,” she said. “I’ve been a resident of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, hunted the white whale aboard the Pequod, fought alongside Napoleon, sailed a raft with Huck and Jim, committed absurdities with Ignatius J. Reilly, rode a sad train with Anna Karenina, and strolled down Swann’s Way.”

Rather than the place itself, Ernest Hemingway sees books as inhabitants of his world, stating that "there is no friend as loyal as a book." Many of Hemingway's novels have been my closest companions since I studied literature in college. Yet my devotion to books began much earlier. As a young girl, I devoured the Anne of Green Gables and Little House series before reading all fifty-eight Hardy Boys mysteries (by that time, I was 10 and in love with Joe Hardy aka Shaun Cassidy). In high school, I read Little Women, Jane Eyre, and Pride and Prejudice over and over.

As an English and French major at Marquette, I read poetry and prose in Old French, Middle English, regional American dialects, and even Anthony Burgess' Nadsat (A Clockwork Orange). I memorized soliloquies, sonnets, odes, and the prologue to The Canterbury Tales. I poured over every line of The Waste Land, trying to make sense of the footnotes that were even longer than the poem itself. I marveled at Ernest Hemingway's brilliant simplicity, as well as the cryptic creativity of James Joyce and J.R.R. Tolkien, whose original, handwritten manuscripts of The Hobbit are housed in the Marquette archives. I became obsessed with the expatriate writers who lived in Paris in the 1920s long before Woody Allen's fabulous movie, Midnight in Paris. I, too, traveled to The City of Light to follow in the footsteps of Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, et al. I spent countless hours in the second incarnation of Shakespeare and Company, wishing that it were actually Sylvia Beach's famous book shop frequented by my favorite writers. I sat in the cafés of Saint-Germain des Prés and Montpartnasse writing and observing, just as the expats and existentialists did before me. In graduate school, I traveled to Florence, Italy to research and actually experience the "view" before writing my master's thesis: "An Impressionist Interpretation of E.M. Forster's A Room with a View."

A few years ago, the literacy committee at PHS surveyed faculty members about our favorite books. It was nearly impossible for me to choose just five until I thought about Hemingway's idea that books are the most loyal of friends. I finally chose those who have been there for me the most -- the friends whom I visit over and over again, never tiring of their company: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince, Forster's A Room with a View, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea. I wonder who Rory Gilmore would choose.

Last year, Australian writer, Patrick Lenton, compiled a list of every single book that was referenced on Gilmore Girls and created the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge. The list is formidable and Lenton is currently on number 18. I have unintentionally, by virtue of my profession and my passion for reading, quite a head start (see the list below)! Maybe you aren't up to this big of a challenge, but can you at least commit to #READ22? It's not a New Year's resolution -- although it is good for you -- rather, it's a gift that you can give yourself this holiday season!

* read it (151/339)
° taught it (17)
+ saw the movie (75)

1984 by George Orwell * °
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain *
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll * + #Disney #JohnnyDepp
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser *
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt *
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy * #Disney
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank *
The Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James *
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner *
Atonement by Ian McEwan +
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin *
Babe by Dick King-Smith +
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett *
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath *
Beloved by Toni Morrison *
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney *
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley *
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner +
Candide by Voltaire * °
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer *
Carrie by Stephen King +
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller * +
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger * °
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White *
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman *
Christine by Stephen King +
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens * + #play #Scrooge
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess * +
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare *
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker *
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas * +
Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Crucible by Arthur Miller *
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon *
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens *
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown * +
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller *
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson *
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante *
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells * +
Don Quixote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv +
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson * +
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson *
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen *
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol *
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton *
Ethics by Spinoza *
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer +
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury *
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson +
The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien * +
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom *
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce *
Fletch by Gregory McDonald +
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley * +
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger *
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers +
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner * +
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen * +
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo +
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky *
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell * +
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford *
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb +
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck * +
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald * ° + #Redford #Leo #TeamLeo
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens *
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare * + #MelGibson
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling +
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling +
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad *
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry *
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare *
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare *
Henry V by William Shakespeare *
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby +
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss * + #cartoon #JimCarey #cartoonisbetter
How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Ginsberg *
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo * + #Disney
The Iliad by Homer +
I’m With the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote * +
Inferno by Dante *
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte * +
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan * +
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare *
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain *
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair *
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini *
Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman *
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield +
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel *
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen * °
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott * + #KHepburn #Ryder #TeamKate
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding *
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson *
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold *
Love Story by Erich Segal +
Macbeth by William Shakespeare * +
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert *
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris *
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare *
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka *
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson * +
Moby Dick by Herman Melville *
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway * (Favorite!)
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf *
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall * + #ClarkGable
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer *
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco *
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin +
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson *
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel *
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen * +
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan *
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck * °
Old School by Tobias Wolff
On the Road by Jack Kerouac *
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey * ° +
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare *
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson * +
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton * ° +
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster *
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky * ° +
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde *
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi * +
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker *
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche *
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen * + #PBS #Knightly #TeamFirth
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw *
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers * + #Disney
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe * °
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier +
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant *
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien * +
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert *
Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton * +
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare * ° + #1968 #DiCapprio/Danes #Team1968
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster * + (Master's Thesis: "An Impressionist Reading of A Room with a View"
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin * +
The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne *
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand +
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir *
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd *
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Hotels of Europe
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen * +
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King +
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse * °
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut *
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway *
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers * + #Disney
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare *
Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning *
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner *
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams * ° +
Stuart Little by E. B. White *
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway * ° +
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust *
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber * +
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens * +
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald *
Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry +
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger * +
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway *
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee * ° +
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith *
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom * ° +
Ulysses by James Joyce *
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe *
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray *
Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett * °
Walden by Henry David Thoreau *
Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten * +
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy +
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Color is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles *
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson *
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire *
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum * +
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte * +
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

"All 339 Books Referenced In Gilmore Girls". BuzzFeed. N.p., 2016. Web. 13 Dec. 2016.

Guilty & Not-So-Guilty Pleasures

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