Attempting the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge
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On October 5, 2000, the world was introduced to an ambitious 15-year-old tv charter named Rory Gilmore. The Gilmore Girls ran for seven seasons and did A Year in the Life mini-series in 2016. Rory was a huge bookworm with a lifelong dream of attending Harvard. In the show and mini-series, Rory was either seen reading or mentioned 408 different books. Hence The Rory Gilmore Reading challenge started to make its way around the internet. I am unsure who originally came up with the challenge.
There are a few Booktubers who are attempting to complete the challenge. While watching others set their 2022 reading goals I decided I was going to attempt to try to read one book off the list per month. However, that has not happened. I have read a couple but definitely not one a month. I am going to work harder at that. Here are the whopping 24 books I have read so far.
How much reading does this challenge really consist of?
I primarily listen to audiobooks so I wanted to see how many of these books I could get on audio. Which led to seeing how long it would take me to listen to all the books available to me on audio. Which led to seeing how many pages in total. I try to listen to all my books for free from the library. My local library uses Libby by Override for their audiobooks. However, I also pay for Audible and Scribd monthly because some books are app-exclusive.
There is one unrealistic book in this challenge, the Compact Oxford English Dictionary. In the episode where the dictionary is referenced Rory's dad asked her if she could have any book in the world what would it be, and she tells him the Compact Oxford English Dictionary. I will not be reading a dictionary to complete this reading challenge.
With taking that off there is a total of 148,969 pages. After subtracting what I have already read I have 142,186 pages left. I calculated the number of hours it would take to listen to all the books I have available to me on audio totaling 3,596 hours and 31 minutes.
My Plan of Attack
I like to mood read so sticking to a planned TBR is hard for me. I use a spin the wheel app to help pick the next book to read when I do not know what to read. I also participate in a couple of readathons per year. The two I have participated in this year are-Whateverathon hosted by Maddie at Book Browsing Blog, and Middle-Grade March hosted by Krista at Books and Jams, Amanda at the Curly Reader, and Katie at Life Between Words. Next year I will also be participating in Bookopoly hosted by Becca at Becca and the Books and possibly a couple more. I will use books from this challenge to fulfill the reading prompts of the readathons I participate in. A few Booktubers I follow host regular reading sprints I will join when I can.
I am excited to see how long it takes me to read the 384 books I have left to read. Follow me on StoryGraph at collier4ever to see what I am reading.
This post contains affiliate links. When you purchase an item from my link I earn a small percentage at no extra cost to you. If you do purchase an item thank you for using my link to do so. The money from affiliations goes directly to my debt.
