Tag: books

I’ve Never Kept Up with the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge

Gilmore Girls became my biggest companion during terminal leave–the show filling a void left behind when I no longer congregated daily with people. I became immersed in the small town of Stars Hollow, an imaginary community even smaller than the town I lived in during high school. Rory was–and forever will be–smarter than me. I have no qualms admitting that I never adopted her studious habits although I have considered reading many of the books she’s described as reading or books being associated with the show that have never been in my TBR pile. Apparently, I have a big challenge before me: Goodreads pegged her list just below 400 titles although other sites vary.

If I went back and looked over my life, I guess it’s likely that I’ve read something in that ballpark. I don’t keep all of my books though, and that’s what creates a real challenge for me. Maybe I could be considered a prolific reader even though I am not a fast reader.

This year I’ve taken up a greater appreciation for books from the public library. Not only do I want to reduce how much money I’m spending on books that I might not read more than once, I want to explore books that I wouldn’t have found so easily if I had wandered into a bookstore. Librarians are amazing people, and it is hard to see their world treated like garbage because many on the right have strong opinions against topics and books they find controversial. These professionals are my main points-of-contact for finding non-American, immigrant, and first generation American authors and I love their collections of cookbooks to hone my culinary skills. (Cookbooks are expensive!!!) My life is monumentally improved because these individuals studied library and information science for their career choices and their knack for designing the layout of my local spaces means it’s fun to wander my favorite sections and also to rush to the array of new books for a more unexpected find.

Reflecting on my admiration for the show (for the most part!), I think I am most appreciative of who Rory is as a learner. In this regard, I speak of her life outside of school and not her struggles to keep up with the Chilton students who have more experience with rigorous academic curriculums. We don’t get the full details on how she’s amassed her sizable book collection given her mom’s modest income, but there is a scene where she’s hunting for books at a massive town sale that gives me the idea the community book sales likely played a role. Getting books for cheap (or borrowing heavily from the public library) is a blessing I think we should all appreciate. Learning should always be accessible. (Side Note: Because I did not notice any books in the show with spine labels complete with Dewey Decimal markers, I think Rory’s books are either purchased or gifted to her or she gets school copies to return at the end of her classes.)

To go back to the show referenced reads for a minute, here are books I know with certainty I have read at some point in my life:

  1. The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald
  2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  3. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (I’ve read it two or three times)
  4. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  5. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  6. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
  7. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  8. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
  9. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (love it)
  10. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  11. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  12. The Iliad by Homer
  13. Beowulf
  14. Night by Elie Wiesel (How anyone can deny the Holocaust after having read his story or about Anne Frank I will never know.)
  15. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  16. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt (I loved Angela’s Ashes and hated ‘Tis)
  17. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (I’ve read all the Wicked books…love them all)
  18. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (one of the most life changing books I’ve ever read)
  19. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
  20. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust (I powered through it over a few years and I can see why Rory’s mother, Lorelai, gave up on it! It’s exhausting to read for the most part, and then there are moments of brilliance.)
  21. The Odyssey by Homer
  22. Shakespeare’s Sonnets by William Shakespeare
  23. Stuart Little by E.B. White
  24. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (honestly, each book of hers I’ve read has been wonderful)
  25. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
  26. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
  27. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
  28. Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach (I don’t recall seeing this in the original series or the revival, but since it’s included from the list I reviewed, I will keep it listed for now.)
  29. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
  30. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

How much of Shakespeare’s works outside of her sonnets I read from high school is murky for me. I don’t recall if we read the other works described in Gilmore Girls in their entirety or in selected pieces, so I am not including them here.

I went into this blog thinking I maybe only read 5-10 books that were referenced on the show. To have read 30 of them is a nice surprise for me.

We must remember that reading is a personal endeavor. There are some stories we come across in our schools that we like or dislike. There are some stories we might not encounter in our K-12 education system due to book bans and as adults it is our responsibility to think for ourselves about whether we’d like to read them or not. Some of our peers are faster readers and others savor a book like a quiet afternoon sipping coffee at a local cafe. One is not better than the other: the pace we approach reading a book will greatly influence the things we notice in it. There are times we have to consume a book like a meal on the road. Ploughing through a number of textbooks in a college semester is one such example. Sometimes, we’re busy as parents or holding down multiple jobs and skimming a book gives us enough escapism for that period of our existence. Other times, we want or need to slow down. I am in the second season. I’ve slowed down more than intended last year and this year. My health challenges have made even holding a book in my hands uncomfortable at times, and I haven’t yet found a love for audio books the way others do. For that reason, my reading list is shorter but one of great intention.

I might finally have some real answers this week on what’s going on with my body. The news will likely influence my future reading choices much like how physical pain the past year has taught me to appreciate reading as a different form of exercise.

These books aren’t all I’ve read this year. I read a lot of news and my work entails a significant amount of reading each day. If you’re like me and haven’t added a lot of books to your finished pile, don’t feel bad. Reading in all its forms matters. I’m too lazy to tally how many news articles I’ve read and my work involves reading and re-reading a lot of the same internal and external references that shape my work environment.

My 2025 completed reads are as follow, save for The Lupus Encyclopedia. I read most of the book when I was concerned my health woes were this autoimmune disorder.

  1. Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas
  2. No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister
  3. No Ordinary Assignment by Jane Ferguson
  4. The Living and the Rest by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
  5. They Will Tell You the World is Yours: On Little Rebellions and Finding Your Way by Anna Mitchael
  6. Investigating Lois Lane: The Turbulent History of the Daily Planet’s Ace Reporter by Tim Hanley
  7. Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong
  8. The Comprehensive Whiskey Course: A Comprehensive Tasting School in Ten Classes by Robin Robinson
  9. The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez
  10. The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center by Rhaina Cohen
  11. The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life by Mike Rucker
  12. She Followed the Moon Back to Herself by Amanda Lovelace
  13. Let Me Be Like Water by S.K. Perry
  14. In Conclusion, Don’t Worry About It by Lauren Graham
  15. The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters by Tom Nichols

I am currently reading the following:

  1. Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World by M.R. O’Connor
  2. The Art of Danish Living: How to Find Happiness In and Out of Work by Meik Wiking

Before I close out today’s entry, I thought I’d mention that I don’t count cookbooks as reads. Cookbooks are valuable reading resources, too, even though I’ve excluded them from my personal book count. The one I’ve read almost in its entirely over the years is Samin Nosrat’s Salt Fat Acid Heat. Of the handful cookbooks I’ve purchased, including this one by Samin, most will devote pages before and after recipes with paragraphs about the origin of the recipe or ingredients or a story about that person’s upbringing. The same is true for most of the cookbooks I’ve borrowed from the library, and it would be considerate of me to carve some reading time for those stories in the same manner I’ve devoted myself to the recipes within those pages.

Wishing you all the best.

~Cheryl

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My Home Is My Writing Space

Good morning, everyone. I am checking in with you all before I start work. Today is a WFH day (yeah). I love starting my morning off with more of a leisurely pace. My new position has allowed me more freedom to work towards completing the first draft of my memoir. I work from home three days a week, giving me an extra hour before my shift to tackle my writing project. My goal is to complete the first draft in October. A desired concurrent goal was to also re-do all the OIF 2-2 casualty data I lost from a previous computer, but I am becoming more aware it’s better suited to a project that runs concurrent to editing my memoir drafts.

Drawing inspiration from Rooms of Their Own: Where Great Writers Write by Alex Johnson, I am letting you all take a small peek at my current home, my preferred writing space. My new home is filled with more natural light than than any of the homes my husband and I have purchased before; it also has more natural light than any of our rental homes, which have been journaling spaces but not any place where I’ve taken up memoir writing. I’ve also occasionally written in my working spaces, but those are brief pockets of break time that only permitted me, at best, a paragraph or two towards my project.

My current home is equipped with a large rectangular dining space that is opened to the living room and within sight line of our kitchen, but my preferred “public space” of the home to write in would be this breakfast nook. I like having the large window behind me. My preference is to write with natural light, but I’ll write in the evening parked under can lights or a ceiling pendant when the task requires it.

I draw a lot of inspiration for my writing from other books. You can learn a lot about what shape you want your memoir to take when you read other memoirs. A big decision I came to was not to use my memoir as a place to bitch about exes and family dysfunction. There might be a moment to share something that speaks to grief and stepping into my own potential due to being let down, but I’ve cringed at how I’ve seen other women left raw emotions in their memoirs instead of taking the necessary time to step away from the experience and learn from it. The two memoirs that made me cringe are Maid by Stephanie Land and Shade It Black: Death and After in Iraq by Jessica Goodell and John Hearn. Instead, I’ve found the way someone unpacks their past with critical awareness is someone I want to learn from; two of my favorites: Mary Pflum Peterson’s White Dresses: A Memoir of Love and Secrets, Mothers and Daughters and Jane Ferguson’s No Ordinary Assignment (still reading it currently). Once I complete my memoir draft, I’ll probably share a list of key books that helped me accept being vulnerable in my writing and those that have helped me improve my actual writing skills. (Dialogue writing is still a weakness of mine; I don’t like putting words in people’s mouths from memory.)

My family bookshelf includes cookbooks, a mixture of fiction and non-fiction works, and a rotation of library books.

I will admit, like a lot of writers, I also like a glass of something special while I write. Don’t judge! We had the option of purchasing a larger, less expensive wine fridge, but we went with a smaller, retro look Rocco fridge instead. We like the space on top for the bigger bottles and the different zones within allow us to balance the needs of wine, beer and non-alcoholic beer, and a few bottles of spirits. This won’t necessarily be a good fit for those concerned about kids getting into alcohol. We don’t have any little ones running around (save for a high drive Belgian Malinois). Our teenager is also incredibly responsible, and unless we notice a change in her behavior, we trust that we can leave our alcohol setup as is.

Last thing…every writer needs a snack of some sort. Our new pantry is decently sized. As time permits, I’d like to obtain a quote to make better use of the space, but this is a small peek at what we’ve got going on here. It’s not abnormal for us to have multiple boxes of Cheez-It’s and at least two flavors of Oreos in stock. The pantry is in less of a state of identity crisis compared to last year when we moved in. Out of sight, I have most of our flours lined up together; the salty snacks (olives, pickles, etc.) grouped in a bin; and chips usually end up together as neighbors.

Thanks for dropping in for a quick check-in. I only have a minute minutes left to spare before my paid job commences for the day, so it’s time for more coffee and a quick moment to organize.

Wishing you all the best.

~Cheryl

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