Since we first peeked into Stars Hollow, Conn. on Oct. 5, 2000, Gilmore Girls has delighted people worldwide. Combining unparalleled writing with endearing characters and a respect for the complexities of life, the series continues to bring people together today.The Gilmore Girls Companion takes you behind the scenes of this television classic, from the first glimmer of the idea to the making of the series finale, based on more than 40 interviews with cast and crew, including Edward Herrmann, Kelly Bishop, Michael Winters, Sean Gunn, executive producer Gavin Polone and writer Jane Espenson. Go inside the writers room, the wardrobe trailer and the editor's office as an episode comes together in a scant eight days.Along the way, relive your favorite Gilmore moments with a full program guide, complete with behind-the-scenes recollections from many of the people who made it all possible.
A former writer and editor for USA Today, Berman writes for several national publications and is currently at work on several books about television and film.
A.S. Berman is the author of "The Gilmore Girls Companion," "Soap: The Inside Story of the Sitcom that Broke all the Rules," and the forthcoming book "So Beautiful it Hurts: The Making of My So-Called Life." His latest book is "Wolves Lie Dreaming," a novel.
When I first found out about The Gilmore Girls Companion, elation quickly turned to devastation when I realised that it couldn’t yet be bought in the United Kingdom. Four long months later, I received it as a birthday gift and eagerly began reading about a world I knew well and loved dearly.
Although unauthorised, The Gilmore Girls Companion should not be perceived as a money-making scheme created to exploit the Gilmore Girls’ large fanbase, but a well thought out project headed by A.S. Berman. The book is clearly written by a passionate fan and is detailed, well researched and informative. Berman must be the most knowledgeable person on the TV show on Earth, aside from the creators.
The book begins with the story of how Gilmore Girls came to be and then goes into amazing detail about every episode in every season. It features memorable moments, “Behind the Scenes”, character sketches, “Kirk of all Trades” (a humorous section about Kirk’s many vocations), quotes, phrases, interviews, photographs, cast biographies and much more - the book is nearly 500 pages long. I quickly realised that this was not meant to be a book that you read through like a novel, but one you dip in to now and again. I am happily going through it season by season as I re-watch (for the fifth time, in case you’re wondering) my coveted Gilmore Girls boxsets. I’ve learned so many new things about the show already and I’m only half way through the book.
If I had one complaint, it’d be that I’m not sure what all the headings of each section are meant to represent, such as “Ginchy!”, “Notes” (often quotes), and “Amen, Sister Friend” (ditto). Otherwise, it’s perfect.
Gilmore Girls was an extremely underrated, intelligent, literary teen show that should be watched by all book lovers. This companion is a must-have for all Gilmore Girls fans!
I really wanted to love this book (duh). But unless you're going to read this while watching the show, and read the bit about each episode you watch, this is a bit of a weird book. I could kind of see it as a companion while you watch the show, but other than that it was just dry and didn't offer up any new information for me. But I love getting into the Gilmore Girls universe in any way I can! I'm obsessed!
I will say that I liked reading able Amy Sherman-Palladino's beginnings. But honestly at this point with the revival out, a lot of the theories in this book are now answered.
Super disappointed. I was really looking forward to insights and trivia of the show but this book is not that. The book is a really nice size and jam packed with information, the likes of which I can't imagine the effort it took to compile but, it is simply an episode regurgitation of scenes and quotes. Scenes and quotes I get on my own by watching the show. The writing was poor; acronyms were not explained and personal quotes were sometimes so long and out of context that I couldn't figure out who was being referred to. And what is GINCHY? I had to look it up and when I did I am left wondering if the word was (constantly) used out of context and why it was in all caps. Take chances spending your money on another book, this one definitely was not worth the money.
I was so excited to read this book but was so disappointed when I actually did. The writing was so poor I honestly thought it was written by someone where English wasn't their first language only to look up the author and find out he's a journalist. Being a copy editor in the journalism field myself I can't believe some of the errors he let slip by. On top of that it was super opinionated. I don't care what the author (as he so often refers to himself as throughout the book) thinks of certain scenes, episodes and even seasons. I wanted a more unbiased look at the series. I also could probably count on one hand the amount of new things I learned about the series. If you're really interested in reading this book I suggest borrowing it from a friend. It's not worth the money. Trust me.
I listened to the audiobook version of this, but I think it is a book better perused with a physical copy as most of it is an episodic guide to Gilmore girls, with a synopsis, memorable quotes, and best and worst points of each episode. I would have liked for there to be more behind-the-scenes information and insight into the making of the show.
As I was listening to this book, these are some thoughts I was having: - Why does the narrator pronounce the date 9-11 like the phone number 9-1-1? - Narrator doesn't know how to pronounce any of the Asian names, like Keiko Agena, Young Chui and Kyun - Narrator doesn't know how to say 'bubbes' - though to be fair, it's not that common a word - Narrator REALLY doesn't know how to say Matt Czuchry - The narrator doesn't know how to say 'emo'! Seriously? - If the narrator had watched just ONE episode of Gilmore girls, which one might think would be good preparation for recording an audiobook about the show, he would have known that Doose, as in Taylor Doose and Doose's Market, is pronounced DOUGH-see, not DEUCE! Listening to him mispronounce that again and again was making me crazy!
I was looking fwd to reading this book but ended up disappointed. Most of the content is quotes from the show, not all are completely correct. The only part I read was the sidebars and small boxes and even those didn't give much insight into the production of the show or had any behind-the-scenes stories from the cast.
Cute companion to Gilmore Girls, but an incredibly long listen (14 hours) with little new information. The narrator, also, has definitely never watched an episode in his life and I was so annoyed by his constant mispronunciations of character names.
It's strange just how poor of a companion to Gilmore Girls this book actually is. This feels like a self-published book that didn't allow for editing. It's unusual what this book does and doesn't do, especially considering what I feel like would be essential to putting a book like this together.
What do I like about The Gilmore Girls Companion? The episodic rundown can at times be well-handled. A.S. Berman occasionally will give his opinion of the episode and I do appreciate how he points out moments that will resonate in future episodes.
Everything else here is pretty poorly handled. Berman gets interviews with some of the show's people, but no one that has any real perspective of anything interesting to say. Quite often, Berman will interview people and ask them questions about the show and the answers are sometimes "I don't know." Instead of not including those answers, he just throws them in anyways.
Which might be my biggest problem with this book: it's completely disorganized. The interviews and information about certain episodes are just thrown in sporadically. Berman edits in pieces about episodes seasons prior to them actually happening, which can spoil the show if you're following along like I was. And there's rarely any glimpses into the behind the scenes of the show.
What I find most shocking is that this book doesn't even feature any sort of guide to the show's references. It might be the most distinctive thing about Gilmore Girls-hell even the DVD comes to a guide to the references-but this book does nothing to help with them.
For watching this show through for the first time, The Gilmore Girls Companion didn't so much guide me as it pointed out the flaws in its own attempts in trying to be a companion. There are some very easy choices this book could've made and been successful, but instead it's just a bland guide that doesn't add much at all to this show.
Pretty much everything you could wish to know Gilmore girls tv-show: episode guides, quotes, fun facts and cast and crew memories during years. And even bad Gilmore episode is still better than Bunheads. Amazing show and great guide.
In this time of peak social media, very few shows or films are truly underrated. Wherever something good exists, there is a group of fans willing to defend it. Even so, I will submit that Gilmore Girls remains underrated. Besides maybe Freaks and Geeks, Gilmore Girls is the most influential teen/family television show of the 21st and pretty much every dramedy owes the show a debt. It is on my personal top 10 of all time and I think that any proper "best of" television list would have it safely in the top 25.
A.S. Berman's "The Gilmore Girls Companion" hearkens back to another era of the internet, when episodic guides still made sense, before Vulture and AV Club recaps rendered them unnecessary. And while this book is full of passion, research, and solid journalism, we are reminded why the form of "episodic companion" has gone the way of the dodo.
The Gilmore Girls Companion goes through every single episode of the series one by one weaving in interviews, anecdotes, and analysis of the series. There is a decent-sized preface and a short afterward, but the bulk of the book is spent digging through the series piece by piece. Superior books like "Seinfeldia" and "Generations Friends" have proven that books about a series are better off broken down year by year or season by season than episode by episode. The reality of production is that episodes may be block shot or shot quickly and often there are no notable historical or creative differences in a group of consecutive episodes. As a result, a book that looks at a series episode by episode will get repetitive no matter how passionate or precise the writer may be.
The episodic structure of the book also leads itself to excesses, like tracking all the times Emily fires her maid, which, while funny is not the most economical use of word count. Telling the story more loosely would have allowed for flexibility. For example, a story about Seinfeld needs to focus more on the famously labored development process whereas the story of Friends ought to save ample time for the show's robust afterlife. Berman is forced to cut short some of his best material because of his structural commitments.
Though form handicaps The Gilmore Girls Companion, there is still plenty here for a Gilmore fan or an entertainment professional to enjoy. Berman actually visited the set and he seems to have a keener understanding of "how things work" than most civilians who write about television. For example, he interviews art and costume department personnel and is careful in breaking down the creative process of the show. He knows that not all producers are writers, that the director works for the showrunner, and that the writers assistant knows more about the story than almost anyone. His knowledge and attention to detail result in a book that will offer insight to any professional or aspiring professional wanting to learn more about TV and he ably avoids mistakes I routinely see from sloppier entertainment journalists.
While this book is imperfect, it made me nostalgic for a time we have lost. The cast and crew feel like a family, something that was more possible when shows routinely ran for 8 seasons at 22 episodes each. And the creation of an All-American town on a studio backlot is rarer and rarer in the age of runaway production. They literally don't make 'em like Gilmore Girls anymore. But just like a proper portrait of a family, Berman refuses to shy away from the realities of life on Gilmore Girls. The exacting dialogue came at a price, with routine overtime and stories of 20+ hour days. After all, it isn't fair to write about nostalgia without acknowledging that some things are better left in the past.
"The Gilmore Girls Companion" is not a perfect book, but its loving attention to detail reminds us just how special the series that inspired the book really was. And while I don't necessarily need a detailed analysis of every festival Stars Hollow ever held or every job Kirk ever held, I am glad it exists.
In true Rory Gilmore fashion, here's my pro/con list of the Gilmore Girls Companion audiobook:
Pros: * A wealth of detail about all aspects of the production * Edward Hermann reading his foreword * Makes a good substitute for rewatching the series yet again and driving my housemates insane * Finally, the definitive list of Emily's maids * A heap of excellent quotes * All the trivia you never knew you wanted to know
Cons: * Weird "us true Gilmore Girls fans" moments, like declaring some episodes just bad bad bad * Maybe I'm just not a real fan (see above), but the Magical Life-changing Epiphany of Gilmore Girls (and the Magical Life-changing Vision of Amy and Dan Palladino) feels cringeworthy at best and cult-like at worst * The audiobook recording is next-level terrible. Mispronouncing Doose the whole time, repeating entire sections that you just heard, and frequently mixing up Lorelai/Rory (or better yet, just calling them Lory) - no budget to edit? No budget to tell the audiobook reader how to pronounce the names? Double plus unginchy.
I happened upon The Gilmore Girls Companion by A. S. Berman in the library. I immediately grabbed it because I did not know it existed. I loved the TV show.
The Gilmore Girls Companion is everything you ever wanted to know about Gilmore Girls and more. The book talks about how the show came into existence, the casting, the writers, the change of writers, etc.
I appreciated the brief synopsis given for each episode. I felt like I was watching the show again. It reminded me of what I loved about Gilmore Girls and what I had forgotten I disliked about it.
This is a thorough companion, as much as a book like this can be, but it is not meant to be read like a novel. This guide is for true Gilmore fans who want to revisit the series over and over again.
The audio book reader has clearly not watched the show. Various names are not pronounced correctly, most notably Taylor Doose and Henry Cho.
The book goes through each episode, with a little synopsis, quotes, etc. I’ve watched Gilmore Girls numerous times so this just drew the book out longer. The audio book is about 15 hours long.
What I enjoyed was the interviews with the different characters and those who worked on the show. I liked learning about what was going on when filming or what the characters saved from their time on the show.
It was definitely not great as an audio book. The character names pronounced incorrectly really grated on me. Hearing quotes of Lorelai and Rory in a male voice just changed things.
It’s a good companion book for the show, but a bad audio book.
Now don’t get me wrong, this was a fun read. In fact, I very well may go back and watch the entire series, or at least the epilogue episodes, just because I relived it all while reading (the book came out prior to the Netflix specials, so rewatching those would tie it all up nicely). That said, there’s come commentary that I didn’t necessarily want in a “companion” and didn’t agree with - we get that you have opinions, but I’m not here for them. Overall though, a nice collection of information on a beloved show.
This is the perfect companion for any die-hard fan. It’s likely not a “sit and read cover to cover” except for those who have seen the show enough to recognize most if not all episodes, but regardless, Bergman shares really fun trivia and commentary for each episode of the series with interviews with various cast and crew.
It would be interesting to read an extended edition including Year in the Life, Gilmore Guys, and another ten years of fandom.
Of course, I had to read this during Gilmoreathon, though it didn’t fit any official prompt!
My favorite television series as a book! I really enjoyed reading the stars’ thoughts and insights into the episodes and series. I also enjoyed reading other behind-the-scene stuff. On the other hand, I found it drawn out that the book mostly consisted of a run-by-run synopsis of each episode in detail. I think most real GG fans know the series well, and they would rather read the behind-the-scene stuff.
Blazed through this pretty quickly. The behind the scenes anecdotes and staff biographies were interesting but the episode recaps, key scenes and quotes under sections like “Ginchy” were too long and mostly unnecessary. The shout out to international fans whenever another country was mentioned was just weird. I had hoped for more background, little facts that would add to the Gilmore story on and off screen especially given how long the book is.
Loved this via audiobook!!!! This is a great tool to listen to while you rewatch the series. My only complaint is the wrong pronunciation of a few key character names but otherwise it was great insight and info from the actors and behind the scenes. Not sure I would have enjoyed it the same reading the text as I did listening to it.
This book includes some insight behind the scenes of the beloved (though not by me) series. It also has an episode by episode breakdown. There are spoilers throughout the book, so this is aimed at people already familiar with the series rather than newbies. I waited until I was done watching to start reading, and I was glad I did.
A fun, deep dive into my favorite shows. The author put his own opinions in the book, but it doesn't detract from the book too much. Good interviews with the cast and I actually read some facts I didn't know! Most of all it shows the great love everyone has for the show.
It's my fault I should have read other reviews, I was looking for some more in depth behind the scenes information instead I got a review of each season with sprinkled cast interviews.
Sehr liebevoll gestaltet und mit großartigen Hintergrundinformationen versehen. Vor allem Einblicke hinter die Kulissen und Kommentare der Beteiligten. Sehr umfangreich, was für wahre Fans einfach nur grandios und sehr interessant ist.
Obviously I didn't read this consistently - it was something I would pick up briefly before bed and read a few pages. And honestly - it's a great summary of the series. You get the main plot points and some cool backstories and anecdotes about the show.
As a huge Gilmore Girls fan who has watched and rewatched every episode like a kazillion times, I enjoyed the episode recaps and behind the scenes peeks offered by this book. I wish it had extended to the Year in the Life follow up mini series though, but the book was fun!
This needs to be amended! For the revival!! Very good, alot of behind the scenes tidbits and stories, very interesting read and a guide to such a beloved series. Highly recommend for all Gilmore fans.
Can’t get enough of the Gilmore Girls! This companion offers many behind-the-scenes looks and cast tidbits regarding the hit 2000s show that still continues to capture the hearts of many (especially in the months of September, October, and November). This was a fun break from my typical reads.
If your a Gilmore Girl fan you��ll love this book. There is a good overview of all the episodes and along the way you’ll get fun tidbits about the behinds the sciences show - and you’ll fall in love with the show even more than before.
I absolutely loved this book. It gave me a reason to do another rewatch. I would then read the episode description soon after usually after about 5 episodes then catch up in the book. So much fun!