From LitLovers.com
Discussion Questions
1. The OASIS
becomes a part of daily life for users around the globe. What virtual
realms (Google, Facebook, iCloud) do you depend on? What is at stake in
the war against IOI, the internet service provider that wants to
overturn Halliday’s affordable, open-source approach? Is it dangerous to
mix profit and dependence on technology?
2. Explore the
question of identity raised in the novel. What do the characters’
avatars tell us about their desires and their insecurities? In reality,
does our physical appearance give false clues about who we really are?
How does Parzival, transformed into a celebrity gunter, become Wade’s
true self?
3. With a narrator who vividly captures the human
experience, Ready Player One delivers a world that is easy for us to
imagine. In the novel, what was at the root of the grim downturn for
Earth’s inhabitants? Could your community start looking like the stacks
by the year 2044?
4. How does love affect Wade’s rational mind?
Would you have given Art3mis the tip about playing on the left side to
defeat the lich (page 99, chapter ten)? Did you predict that she would
turn out to be a friend or a foe?
5. How does public school in
the OASIS compare to your experience in school? Has author Ernest Cline
created a solution to classroom overcrowding, student apathy, and school
violence?
6. In his Columbus bunker, Wade puts on so many pounds
that he can no longer fit comfortably in his haptic chair. How would
you fare in his weight-loss program, described in chapter nineteen,
featuring a simulation gym, coaching from Max, and a lockout system that
restricts his diet and forces him to exercise?
7. Wade’s OASIS
pass phrase is revealed on page 199, at the end of chapter nineteen: “No
one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful.” What
does this philosophy mean to him at that point in his life?
8.
How is the novel shaped by the 1980s backdrop, featuring John Hughes
films, suburban shows like Family Ties, a techno-beat soundtrack, and of
course, a slew of early video games? Did Halliday grow up in a utopia?
9.
Discuss Bryce Lynch’s financial situation, rigged so that Wade could
infiltrate IOI. When does Wade become willing to “die trying”? How did
you react to the image of debtors being forced into indentured
servitude?
10. Wade doesn’t depend on religion to make moral
decisions or overcome life-threatening challenges. What does the novel
say about humanity’s relationship to religion? What sort of god is
Halliday, creator of the OASIS universe?
11. Despite their
introverted nature, the book’s characters thrive on friendship. Discuss
the level of trust enjoyed by Halliday and Og, and among Wade, Aech,
Art3mis, Daito, and Shoto. How is true power achieved in Ready Player
One?
12. In the closing scenes, Halliday’s reward proves to be
greater than mere wealth. What is Halliday’s ultimate prize? How did the
rules of Halliday’s game help him determine the type of player who
would likely win?
13. In his quest for the three keys, Wade is
required to inhabit many imaginary worlds, including movies, video
games, and a simulation of Halliday’s childhood home. Which of these
virtual realities appealed to you the most? What sort of virtual reality
is provided by a novel?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Thursday, June 8, 2017
September 2017: Ready Player One
Kevira's first book choice for us is "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline.
ABOUT THE BOOK
In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines—puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.
But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ERNEST CLINE has worked as a short-order cook, fish gutter, plasma donor, elitist video store clerk, and tech support drone. His primary occupation, however, has always been geeking out, and he eventually threw aside those other promising career paths to express his love of pop culture fulltime as a spoken word artist and screenwriter. His 2009 film" Fanboys," much to his surprise, became a cult phenomenon. These days Ernie lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, their daughter, and a large collection of classic video games. READY PLAYER ONEis his first novel."
ABOUT THE BOOKIn the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines—puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.
But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ERNEST CLINE has worked as a short-order cook, fish gutter, plasma donor, elitist video store clerk, and tech support drone. His primary occupation, however, has always been geeking out, and he eventually threw aside those other promising career paths to express his love of pop culture fulltime as a spoken word artist and screenwriter. His 2009 film" Fanboys," much to his surprise, became a cult phenomenon. These days Ernie lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, their daughter, and a large collection of classic video games. READY PLAYER ONEis his first novel."
July 2017: Strangers Drowning
Liz's pick for July 2017 is "Strangers Drowning: Impossible idealism, drastic choices, and the urge to help" by Larissa MacFarquhar. It was released in September 2016.
What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas.
A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. But how do they weigh the needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have?
Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. The children survive. But what if they hadn’t? How would their parents’ risk have been judged?
A woman believes that if she spends money on herself, rather than donate it to buy life-saving medicine, then she’s responsible for the deaths that result. She lives on a fraction of her income, but wonders: when is compromise self-indulgence and when is it essential?
We honor such generosity and high ideals; but when we call people do-gooders there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture.
Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Moving and provocative, Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why.
ABOUT THE BOOK
What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas.
A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. But how do they weigh the needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have?
Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. The children survive. But what if they hadn’t? How would their parents’ risk have been judged?
A woman believes that if she spends money on herself, rather than donate it to buy life-saving medicine, then she’s responsible for the deaths that result. She lives on a fraction of her income, but wonders: when is compromise self-indulgence and when is it essential?
We honor such generosity and high ideals; but when we call people do-gooders there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture.
Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Moving and provocative, Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Larissa MacFarquhar is a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine.
Her profile subjects have included Barack Obama, the novelist Hilary
Mantel, the poet John Ashbery, the philosopher Derek Parfit, and the
internet icon Aaron Swartz, among many others. She lives in Brooklyn,
New York. In the spring of 2016 she will be teaching in the creative
writing department at Stanford University.
CHECK OUT THIS NPR/TED INTERVIEW:
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
August 2017: The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
Susan's first book pick for us in August 2017 is "The Nest" by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney.
ABOUT THE BOOK
A warm, funny and acutely perceptive debut novel about four adult siblings and the fate of the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives.
Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Months earlier, an inebriated Leo got behind the wheel of a car with a nineteen-year-old waitress as his passenger. The ensuing accident has endangered the Plumbs' joint trust fund, “The Nest,” which they are months away from finally receiving. Meant by their deceased father to be a modest mid-life supplement, the Plumb siblings have watched The Nest’s value soar along with the stock market and have been counting on the money to solve a number of self-inflicted problems.
Melody, a wife and mother in an upscale suburb, has an unwieldy mortgage and looming college tuition for her twin teenage daughters. Jack, an antiques dealer, has secretly borrowed against the beach cottage he shares with his husband, Walker, to keep his store open. And Bea, a once-promising short-story writer, just can’t seem to finish her overdue novel. Can Leo rescue his siblings and, by extension, the people they love? Or will everyone need to reimagine the futures they’ve envisioned? Brought together as never before, Leo, Melody, Jack, and Beatrice must grapple with old resentments, present-day truths, and the significant emotional and financial toll of the accident, as well as finally acknowledge the choices they have made in their own lives.
This is a story about the power of family, the possibilities of friendship, the ways we depend upon one another and the ways we let one another down. In this tender, entertaining, and deftly written debut, Sweeney brings a remarkable cast of characters to life to illuminate what money does to relationships, what happens to our ambitions over the course of time, and the fraught yet unbreakable ties we share with those we love.
A LITTLE MORE...
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney is the New York Times bestselling author of The Nest, which has been translated into more than 25 languages and optioned for film by Amazon Studios with Sweeney writing the adaptation. She has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.
A warm, funny and acutely perceptive debut novel about four adult siblings and the fate of the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives.
Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Months earlier, an inebriated Leo got behind the wheel of a car with a nineteen-year-old waitress as his passenger. The ensuing accident has endangered the Plumbs' joint trust fund, “The Nest,” which they are months away from finally receiving. Meant by their deceased father to be a modest mid-life supplement, the Plumb siblings have watched The Nest’s value soar along with the stock market and have been counting on the money to solve a number of self-inflicted problems.
Melody, a wife and mother in an upscale suburb, has an unwieldy mortgage and looming college tuition for her twin teenage daughters. Jack, an antiques dealer, has secretly borrowed against the beach cottage he shares with his husband, Walker, to keep his store open. And Bea, a once-promising short-story writer, just can’t seem to finish her overdue novel. Can Leo rescue his siblings and, by extension, the people they love? Or will everyone need to reimagine the futures they’ve envisioned? Brought together as never before, Leo, Melody, Jack, and Beatrice must grapple with old resentments, present-day truths, and the significant emotional and financial toll of the accident, as well as finally acknowledge the choices they have made in their own lives.
This is a story about the power of family, the possibilities of friendship, the ways we depend upon one another and the ways we let one another down. In this tender, entertaining, and deftly written debut, Sweeney brings a remarkable cast of characters to life to illuminate what money does to relationships, what happens to our ambitions over the course of time, and the fraught yet unbreakable ties we share with those we love.
A LITTLE MORE...
Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney is the New York Times bestselling author of The Nest, which has been translated into more than 25 languages and optioned for film by Amazon Studios with Sweeney writing the adaptation. She has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.
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