Saturday, 27 February 2016

A Quest Begins

Gilmore Girls is an old TV show I've recently discovered. Following the lives of Lorelai Gilmore, her daughter Rory, and her mother Emily, I've spent quite some time binge-watching episodes.
Rory Gilmore, the youngest "Gilmore Girl", is a bookworm. And when I say bookworm, I mean, like, full-on bookworm - she's been seen in the show reading books by a whole range of authors, from Dr Seuss to JK Rowling to PG Wodehouse to Sylvia Plath.
Which has prompted what is known as the "Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge", a list of books Rory's read in the show.

When I tried to see how many of the books on the list I had read, I got a pretty abysmal score- 20 out of 339.
I set out to try and better it.
I'm hoping, in the next twelve months, to double that score.
And as I do so, I'm planning to post my progress, reviewing the books I read as I tick them off the list.

I hope, on the way, to discover new, interesting books. And let's face it, also to impress people by saying I've read some of the more fancy, depressing-but-considered-a-classic books on that list.
I hope, as I try to double in a year the number of books on the challenge I've read in almost sixteen, that you'll see some that maybe you've never read, and decide whether you want to give it a shot too.

And so I begin, as so many of my favourite protagonists do, on a quest. Admittedly it's not as dramatic as defeating a dark lord, or wreaking revenge- but only at face value. Because I'm doing all of that and more. As I read The Lord of the Rings series, I will walk with Frodo, and cast the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom. As I read The Count of Monte Cristo, I will suffer with Edmond Dantes, and watch coldly as the men who unfairly cast him into prison fall in the eyes of the world. As I read The Odyssey, I will search with Telemachus for his father, and fight with Odysseus as he struggles to return home to Ithaca. As I read Emma, I will matchmake and meddle alongside Emma.

I don't need a prophecy, or a gift of a powerful object, to begin.
My quest begins now.