The Belated Culturalization of Me.

I'm going to make you scoff in this post.

There will be the dropping of jaws and popping of eyes!

The word SERIOUSLY is probably going to float through your awareness if not actually uttered aloud. Because, as you're about to find out - there are some serious gaps in my indoctrination of mainstream media culture.

Gilmore Girls has made it abundantly clear that the number of essential, fundamental movies and books I have never experienced is an actual crime. Just call me Luke Danes!

I keep up with the contemporary scene, but that, I've decided, is just not enough! How can a well-read person such as myself, who was born in 1984 no less, never experience George Orwell? How can a Hallmark movie connoisseur - subjected to all manner of characters named Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth - never immerse herself in the original story? It just cannot be so!

I've therefore spent a ridiculous and frivolous amount of time deciding on the books and movies I MUST indulge in, followed by organizing them into categories. (These are the times when my Virgo shines brightest.)

AND SO....I give you the long-over due syllabus of works I challenge myself (and maybe my husband too because I have ways of making him join me) to consume.


Things I Read In School And Didn't Truly Appreciate

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
3. Charlotte's Web by EB White
4. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
5. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
6. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (I've actually been reading this for years and just haven't finished yet!)
7. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
8. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (I actually remember hating this one)
9. The Count of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas
10. The Giver by Lowis Lowry

Classic & Well-Known Books I Really Should Have Read By Now

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
3. Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
5. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
8. Animal Farm by George Orwell
9. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
10. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

Classic & Well-Known Movies I Really Should Have Seen By Now

1. Citizen Kane
2. Casablanca
3. The Godfather
4. Taxi Driver
5. Singin' In The Rain
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
7. Pulp Fiction
8. Gone With the Wind
9. Some Like It Hot
10. The Sound of Music
11. Duck Soup
12. The Sound of Music
13. Rocky
14. Annie Hall
15. Mary Poppins
16. Bonnie & Clyde
17. Rain Man

Popular 80's & Early 90's Movies I Missed Out On

1. Pretty Woman
2. Footloose
3. The Goonies
4. Flashdance
5. Sixteen Candles
6. Heathers
7. Pretty In Pink
8. Weird Science
9. Risky Business
10. Labyrinth
11. Empire Records
12. Mystic Pizza
13. When Harry Met Sally
14. Sleepless In Seattle
15. Desperately Seeking Susan
16. The Outsiders

Movies Referenced In Gilmore Girls That I Want To See

1. Showgirls
2. The Jerk
3. Sabrina (1954)
4. Driving Miss Daisy
5. Urban Cowboy
6. Diner (1982)
7. Terms of Endearment
8. Hardbodies
9. Thelma & Louise
10. Chinatown
11. It Happened One Night
12. His Girl Friday
13. Mr and Mrs Bridge
14. Brigadoon
15. Fiddler on the Roof
16. High Fidelity
17. Saturday Night Fever
18. Life of Brian
19. Sid and Nancy
20. Endless Love
21. Gidget
22. Xanadu
23. An American in Paris
24. Guys and Dolls
25. Easter Parade
26. Funny Face
27. Almost Famous
28. Animal House
29. Broadcast News
30. Hello Dolly
31. The Incredible Shrinking Man
32. Pippi Longstocking


Books Referenced In Gilmore Girls That I Want To Try Reading

1. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
2. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
3. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
4. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath

Ambitious Classics & Well-Known Books I'd Like to Attempt

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2. Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
3. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Marcel Proust
4. Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche
5. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
6. On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche
7. Daisy Miller by Henry James
8. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
9. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
10. Letters Home by Sylvia Plath
11. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
12. Emma by Jane Austen
13. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Okay - lay it on me - what did I miss?

I left off some obvious ones either because I don't really want to restrict my time to 900-page reads or because I really (really) don't like war movies. But if you've got anything else for me that isn't one of those two things, fill me in!