Reading has the power to bridge generations and bring together communities, and the One Book, One Middletown project has been harnessing this power for 11 years. Organized by the Middletown Rotary Club, Russell Library, Connecticut Humanities’ Center for the Book, and the City of Middletown, the project’s committee selects a book every year for Middletown residents to read and discuss with each other, in the hope that it will encourage reading as a hobby, not a chore.
University Librarian Patricia Tully, who has been involved with the program for four years, explained the selection process for each year’s book.
“We try to target audiences that are reluctant readers,” Tully said. “Therefore, the books should be at a level where it’s like a popular read—they can’t be too technical or too scholarly, and they have to be really engaging. Whatever the story is, the writing has to grab you pretty quickly.”
This year’s book, Ernest Cline’s novel “Ready Player One,” does just that. “Ready Player One” takes place in 2044 in a fictional universe where the characters live in a video game called Oasis. When the game’s creator dies, the protagonist, Wade Watts, embarks on a journey to find the money that he left behind. Wade must overcome obstacles within the game as well as in the real world, which is falling into chaos.
According to Russell Library Technical Assistant in Circulation Christy Billings, “Ready Player One” is very different from books the committee has chosen in the past.
“We’ve never done science fiction before,” Billings said. “We usually pick books that have more of a serious underlying nature to them, which [“Ready Player One”] does have, but there’s also a lot of fun stuff going on because of the gaming aspect.”
Billings added that although the book paints a grim picture of reality, it is nonetheless enjoyable.
“When I went back and read it a second time, I was like, [our world] really is awful,” she said. “But it’s still a lighthearted look at [our society] because of the camaraderie, friendship, and love that are central to the plot.”
Billings believes that in a period in which dystopian novels like “The Hunger Games” are gaining popularity, “Ready Player One” can attract a wide range of readers. Technical and Programming Manager of the Film Department Marc Longenecker, who helped organize one of the project’s events, agreed.
“[The book] has a cross-generational appeal because although it’s kind of pitched as a young-adult model, fantasy, sci-fi vein, the creator of Oasis is obsessed with the 1980s, and so [Cline] draws references from pop culture of that decade that people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s will comprehend and relate to,” Longenecker said.
The novel’s ability to reach people of all ages helps One Book, One Middletown achieve its second goal: to bring together community members of multiple generations who might not generally find anything in common with each other. To encourage group conversations about the book, the program’s committee organized several discussions for people to examine the text together.
The last One Book, One Middletown event of the year, which took place on April 6 at the Russell Library, provided an excellent way for readers to enrich their understanding of “Ready Player One.” Participants were able to Skype with Cline and ask him questions about the novel’s message. Russell Library Job and Career Services Librarian Brandie Doyle thought the Skype format of the event was an interesting riff on the book.
“It was out of necessity, because he lives in Austin and we couldn’t afford to fly him in,” Doyle said. “But also, because it’s a dystopian novel about people escaping the dire reality of the real world by going into this virtual world, we thought it was interesting to fly the author in virtually.”
That said, one doesn’t necessarily have to read the book to join in on the fun. Each year, the program organizes a variety of events that do address some of the central themes of the book in question, but do not necessarily require familiarity with the novel.
“This year, we had a video-gaming kick-off, because video games are central to ‘Ready Player One,’” Billings said. “We were able to find a cartridge of games from the ’80s and ’90s, which the kids had never seen before. There was also an ’80s-themed dance and a scavenger hunt.”
On Thursday, April 4, Longenecker organized a screening of the 1986 film “Big Trouble in Little China.” The film was mentioned in “Ready Player One” and has a similar spirit to the book.
According to Doyle, one of the goals of these activities is to encourage people who haven’t already read the book to pick it up. The events, she feels, help round out the process of getting engrossed in the story and make reading a more interactive experience.
“Reading is typically considered to be a solitary hobby, but these events can put everything in context,” Doyle said. “With ‘Ready Player One,’ for example, for people who were not around in the ’80s to play the games and learn the dance moves, it might make this book come to life. This can help people appreciate literature a little more and maybe ignite something that will make them want to delve deeper [into] their other readings as well and look at literature as a component of a wider understanding of the world.”