Staff Picks
Rory Gilmore's Reading Challenge (List #9 - Starting with 'Eva Luna')
- Ariel H.
- Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Collection
☕ Take a deep dive into all the books seen and referenced on the Gilmore Girls from Season 1 to A Year in the Life.
📚 Just in time for our winter weather. So, grab your books, a cup of coffee (or hot cocoa), and bundle up by the fire.
❄️Smells Like Snow❄️ (except for SC)
Since there are 408 titles, there will be multiple lists sent out over the next few months. Enjoy!
Everything is Illuminated
Published in 2006
A young American man journeys to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II in a Ukrainian village that was ultimately razed by the Nazis, with the help of a local who speaks weirdly broken English.
Fahrenheit 9/11
Published in 2004
Through actual footage, interviews, and declassified documents, Michael Moore illustrates the connections President Bush has to the royal house of Saud of Saudi Arabia and the bin Ladens, how the president got elected on fraudulent circumstances and then proceeded to blunder through his duties while ignoring warnings of the looming betrayal by his foreign partners. Moore details how Bush failed to take immediate action to defend the nation after the 9/11 attacks.
Fahrenheit 451
Published in 2018
In a not too distant future, humans live a seemingly care-free existence where they're happy and productive. There is a "price" though for this life: They must place special drops in their eyes daily and follow the rules perfectly, including the rule that they never own or read books. Guy Montag is a firefighter. He doesn't fight fires though, but instead hunts down those people who refuse to follow the law and burns their books. Like everyone else, Guy has been taught that books are filled with inaccuracies and insane ideas. He continues to believe this lie until a meets someone who teaches him that the dreams in his mind can only be explained through the knowledge found in books. He also learns that rebels have come up with a new way to save books from the firefighters. When Guy's mentor, Captain Beatty, comes to realize that Guy has joined the rebellion, Guy must make a difficult decision to save the collective thoughts of the human race.
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.
Published in 2003
Fiddler on the Roof.
Published in 2007
Based on the Broadway musical about a poor Jewish milkman's family and the struggles to hold onto tradition.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Published in 2017
From the author of the phenomenal number one New York Times bestseller comes the original screen adaptation. It explores the unexpected mysteries of the afterlife by reminding us what really matters her on Earth.
Lord of the Rings. Fellowship of the Ring
Published in 2002
Assisted by a Fellowship of heroes, Frodo Baggins plunges into a perilous trek to take the mystical One Ring to Mount Doom so that it and its magical powers can be destroyed and never possessed by evil Lord Sauron. The astonishing journey begins in the first film of director/co-writer Peter Jackson's epic trilogy that redefined fantasy filmmaking.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Published in 2009
Eddie awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?"
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Published in 2007
Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him, as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?"
Eva Luna
A Novel
Published in 2016
"Meet New York Times bestselling author Isabel Allende's most enchanting creation, Eva Luna: a lover, a writer, a revolutionary, and above all a storyteller. Eva Luna is the daughter of a professor's assistant and a snake-bitten gardener--born poor, orphaned at an early age, and working as a servant. Eva is a naturally gifted and imaginative storyteller who meets people from all stations and walks of life. Though she has no wealth, she trades her stories like currency with people who are kind to her. Inthis novel, she shares the story of her own life and introduces readers to a diverse and eccentric cast of characters including the Lebanese emigre; who befriends her and takes her in; her unfortunate godmother, whose brain is addled by rum and who believes in all the Catholic saints and a few of her own invention; a street urchin who grows into a petty criminal and, later, a leader in the guerrilla struggle; a celebrated transsexual entertainer who instructs her in the ways of the adult world; and a young refugee whose flight from postwar Europe will prove crucial to Eva's fate. As Eva tells her story, Isabel Allende conjures up a whole complex South American nation--the rich, the poor, the simple, and the sophisticated--in a novel replete with character and incident, with drama and comedy and history, with battles and passions, rebellions and reunions, a novel that celebrates the power of imagination to create a better world"-- Provided by publisher.
Fahrenheit 451
Published in 2012
In a society in which books are outlawed, Montag, a regimented fireman in charge of burning the forbidden volumes, meets a revolutionary school teacher who dares to read. Suddenly he finds himself a hunted fugitive, forced to choose not only between two women, but between personal safety and intellectual freedom.
Fahrenheit 451
Published in 2010
A frightening vision of the future, where firemen don't put out fires, they start them in order to burn books. He had been a fireman for ten years, and never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs, nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames. He never questioned anything, until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid, and a professor who told him of a future in which people could think. Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do.
Everything is Illuminated
Published in 2002
Jonathan is a Jewish college student searching Europe for the one person he believes can explain his roots. Alex, a lover of all things American and unsurpassed butcher of the English language, is his lovable Ukrainian guide. On their quixotic quest, the two young men look for Augustine, a woman who might have saved Jonathan's grandfather from the Nazis. As past and present merge, hysterically funny moments collide with episodes of great tragedy -- and an unforgettable story of one family's extraordinary history unfolds.
Everything is Illuminated
A Novel
Published in 2002
With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man - also named Jonathan Safran Foer - sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past. As their adventure unfolds, Jonathan imagines the history of his grandfather's village, conjuring a magical fable of startling symmetries that unite generations across time. Lit by passion, fear, guilt, memory, and hope, the characters in Everything Is Illuminated mine the black holes of history. As the search moves back in time, the fantastical history moves forward, until reality collides with fiction in a heart-stopping scene of extraordinary power. An arresting blend of high comedy and great tragedy, this is a story about searching for people and places that no longer exist, for the hidden truths that haunt every family, and for the delicate but necessary tales that link past and future. Exuberant and wise, hysterically funny and deeply moving, EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED is an astonishing debut.
Finnegans Wake
Published in 1999
Presents an experimental novel depicting a dream of world history, with characters from literature and history appearing and disappearing, written in a dream language that is a comical mixture of all the languages of Europe.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
Published in 2015
Records the experiences of a free-lance writer who embarked on a zany journey into the drug culture.
Fletch
Published in 2009
Fletch He's an investigative reporter whose methods are a little unorthodox. Currently he's living on the beach with the strung-out trying to find to the source of the drugs they live for. Fletch He's taking more than a little flack from his editor. She doesn't appreciate his style. Or the expense account items he's racking up. Or his definition of the word deadline . Or the divorce lawyers who keep showing up at the office. Fletch So when multimillionaire Alan Stanwyk offers Fletch the job of a lifetime, which could be worth a fortune, he's intrigued and decides to do a little investigation. What he discovers is that the proposition is anything but what it seems. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Fletch
Published in 2002
When a wealthy California industrialist tells apparent beach bum I.M. Fletcher that he wants to be murdered, the undercover journalist investigates the businessman's private life.
The Fellowship of the Ring
Published in 2012
Inspired by The Hobbit, and begun in 1937, The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy that Tolkien created to provide "the necessary background of history for Elvish tongues." From these academic aspirations was born one of the most popular and imaginative works in English literature. The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume in the trilogy, tells of the fateful power of the One Ring. It begins a magnificent tale of adventure that will plunge the members of the Fellowship of the Ring into a perilous quest and set the stage for the ultimate clash between powers of good and evil. In this splendid, unabridged audio production of Tolkien's great work, all the inhabitants of a magical universe-hobbits, elves, and wizards-step colorfully forth from the pages. Rob Inglis' narration has been praised as a masterpiece of audio.
The Fellowship of the Ring
Published in 1990
The first volume in the trilogy, tells of the fateful ppower of the One ring. All the members of the fellowship, hobbits, elves and wizards, are plunged into a clash between good and evil.