If you were a child of the 80s, as I was, you likely remember them as a decade of unrelenting fun and optimism—a big, gaudy, over-the-top, stonewashed orgy of synth music, action movies and burgeoning video games. And if you are of this certain age, the nostalgia train is one you ride most every chance you get. If so, have I got a book for you! It’s called #ReadyPlayerOne, an 80s nerdgasm containing literally hundreds all 80’s allusions, across all spectra of geekdom. This is a preposterously fun and big-hearted book about to become a movie directed by none other than #StevenSpielberg (good luck with the licensing on this one!). READ IT NOW! Or better yet, listen to the audiobook, splendidly read by none other than #WillWheaton!

Here is the publisher’s synopsis: "At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, 'Ready Player One' is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed. It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of 10,000 planets. And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them. For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late 20th century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig. And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle. Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape."

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