The votes are in, the results have been tabulated, and the 2018 Coronado Community Read winner is... Ready Player One, by Ernie Cline! The Coronado Community Read program strives to bring the community closer together with the shared reading of one book, along with a variety of discussions and programs centered around the themes of the novel. The program is a joint project of the Coronado Public Library and the Coronado Cultural Arts Commission. Events organized around the themes of Ready Player One will take place in February & March 2018.
Ready Player One is a sci-fi story which takes place in the year 2044, in a dystopian world where people live in a variety of slums concentrated near the few cities where there are jobs. By 2044, the world has been gripped by economic stagnation and social problems due to the depletion of fossil fuels, and the consequences of global warming. One way that people use to escape their desperate situation is to turn to the OASIS, a massive online virtual reality simulation used by billions of people. OASIS was created by James Halliday, an eccentric billionaire who is obsessed with the 1980's. When he dies, he touches off an international race to control his empire by announcing in his will that he has left an Easter egg inside OASIS, and the first person to find it will inherit his entire fortune, and the corporation.
The first Coronado Community Read was held in January of this year. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, was the book chosen for 2017. In January and February, the Coronado Public Library and Coronado Cultural Arts Commission hosted a number of book discussions and programs throughout the community based on Skloot's book. Once those events ended, the Community Read Committee solicited recommendations for the 2018 Coronado Community Read.
Forty-two titles were nominated for the 2018 program. A subcommittee of reading volunteers narrowed the list of nominees down to six titles:
Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan
And The Mountains Echoed, by Khalid Hosseini
The House At Sugar Beach, by Helene Cooper
The Book Of Joy, by HH The Dalai Lama & Archbishop Desmond Tutu
The Wright Brothers, by David McCollough
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