Erie Reader Book Club: April 2026
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
SUNDAY, APR. 26
The Erie Reader Book Club will be reading and discussing Ready Player One by Ernest Cline in conjunction with the Erie Reader 15th Anniversary issue.
This month's pick coincides with a special issue – April is usually reserved for our Earth Day content, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to celebrate the huge milestone that is the Reader's 15th anniversary.
When choosing a book to fit the theme, we looked at two possibilities: a book published in 2011 to match the year we started, or a self-referential book since this issue of the Reader is all about the Reader. As luck would have it, Ready Player One ticks both these boxes.
Set in the dystopian near-future, the depletion of fossil fuels and results of global warming have created an energy crisis across the world, causing massive problems socially and economically. In an effort to escape the decline of society, people turn to the OASIS, a virtual reality world that has evolved to be more stable than the real world.
When the creator of the OASIS dies, his will instructs that a video be released in which he tells the public that he's hidden an Easter egg (a secret message, image, or feature) inside the virtual world, and that the first person to find it will inherit his fortune and his corporation – therefore the OASIS itself.
The novel opens five years after the creator's death, with the Easter egg still unfound within the world. What follows is the story of Wade Watts, an 18-year-old from Oklahoma, as he attempts to find the Easter egg before big corporations and others looking to monetize the system. If he finds the egg and inherits it all, he would finally be able to lift his family out of the poverty in which they live – but how far will they go to prevent others from finding it?
1 p.m. // Werner Books and Coffee, 2608 Liberty St. // Free to join, cost of book not included // For more info: wernerbooks.com
