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Ready Player One

Ernest Cline’s “ Ready Player One ” is a book filled with references to video games, virtual reality, ’80s pop-culture trivia, geek heroes like E. Gary Gygax, and funny-sounding cult items like Frobozz and Raaka-Tu. Yet it works for people who like books without pictures too. Mr. Cline is photographed on the jacket standing in front of an open-flapped DeLorean, like the one in “Back to the Future.” He looks a bit like the filmmaker Kevin Smith, one of the few people on the planet who may be capable of catching all of Mr. Cline’s geekoid references. (Mr. Cline himself wrote the screenplay for the 2009 film “Fanboys,” about unusually fanatical “Star Wars” devotees.) Another is the science-fiction writer John Scalzi, who has aptly referred to “Ready Player One” as a “nerdgasm.” There can be no better one-word description of this ardent fantasy artifact about fantasy culture. With its Pac-Man-style cover graphics and vintage Atari mind-set “ Ready Player One ” certainly looks like a genre

Why I Love Reading Real Books

Why I Love Reading Real Books I read novels online every 2 weeks or so, which adds up to about 25 books per year. As a rule, I always read at least free books online every day. Often it is a lot more than that. I squeeze reading in whenever I can?—?primarily weeknights before bed and then throughout the weekend. Of course this pales in comparison to some notable voracious readers, such as Bill Gates (50+ books per year) and Warren Buffett (500+ pages per day). I read books primarily to learn, grow, and feed my curiosities. This means that I mostly read non-fiction books about my passions of personal development, healthy lifestyle, and business/marketing. While I certainly learn every day on the job, books are a gateway to deeper knowledge within my profession and a way to dive into areas unrelated to my day job. My personality is best-suited to deep exploration of a limited number of subjects, rather than casually flipping from topic to topic. Therefore I greatly prefer reading full

Why Reading Books Should Be Your Priority, According to Science

When was the last time you read free novels , or a substantial magazine article? Do your daily reading habits center around tweets, Facebook updates, or the directions on your instant oatmeal packet? If you’re one of countless people who don’t make a habit of reading regularly, you might be missing out: reading has a significant number of benefits, and just a few benefits of reading are listed below. 1. Mental Stimulation Studies have shown that staying mentally stimulated can slow the progress of (or possibly even prevent) Alzheimer’s and Dementia, since keeping your brain active and engaged prevents it from losing power. Just like any other muscle in the body, the brain requires exercise to keep it strong and healthy, so the phrase “use it or lose it” is particularly apt when it comes to your mind. Doing puzzles and playing games such as chess have also been found to be helpful with cognitive stimulation. 2. Stress Reduction No matter how much stress you have at work, in your persona

Books Should Be Your Priority, According to Science

More than a quarter--26 percent--of American adults admit to not having read even part of a free novels online within the past year. That's according to statistics coming out of the Pew Research Center. If you're part of this group, know that science supports the idea that reading is good for you on several levels. Reading fiction can help you be more open-minded and creative According to research conducted at the University of Toronto, study participants who read short-story fiction experienced far less need for "cognitive closure" compared with counterparts who read nonfiction essays. Essentially, they tested as more open-minded, compared with the readers of essays. "Although nonfiction reading allows students to learn the subject matter, it may not always help them in thinking about it," the authors write. "A physician may have an encyclopedic knowledge of his or her subject, but this may not prevent the physician from seizing and freezing on a diag

The 5 Best Reasons Everyone Should Watch Anime Online

The 5 Best Reasons Everyone Should Watch Anime Online There’s no denying how popular Japanese animation (also called, “anime” by fans of the genre) has become. From its niche presence in the 70s and 80s with series like Speed Racer and Astro Boy to the anime boom in the 90s with Pokemon, Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z , anime has impacted Western pop culture and society dramatically with its quirky characters, imaginative worlds and original storytelling style. Yet, despite its popularity, there remains a stigma surrounding Japanese animation that's keeping many potential Western fans away. Many think anime is all about sex and perversion, others assume it's hyper-violent and bloody, while some people just think the whole Japanese animation thing is too weird for their Western sensibilities. In truth, anime can be for anyone and there is a mountain of reasons everyone should at least give an anime series or movie a go before writing off the entire genre. Here are five of the bes

wwe rar full show

WWE Survivor Series Updated Card, WWE On Charlotte Flair's Status, New Team Members Revealed It was announced on tonight's WWE SmackDown that there will be a 5-on-5 Tag Team Traditional Elimination Match at Survivor Series. The two teams will be made up of 5 tag teams from each brand, making it a 10-man match. The Usos will be the Team Captains for the SmackDown team. They selected The New Day to join them and they will announce the final three teams on next Tuesday's go-home show. There's no word yet on which RAW tag teams will be in the match but we should find out next Monday. Regarding the Women's 5-on-5 Traditional Elimination Match at Survivor Series, SmackDown General Manager Paige announced Asuka, Naomi, Sonya Deville and Carmella for the team but there's no word yet on who the Team Captain will be. Paige also announced Charlotte Flair for the team but she did not come out for the segment on SmackDown. Watch wwe raw full show on website notes that Flair

A Thousand Splendid Suns reviews

It’s not that hard to understand why Khaled Hosseini’s first novel, “The Kite Runner” (2003), became such a huge best seller, based largely on word of mouth and its popularity among book clubs and reading groups. The novel read like a kind of modern-day variation on Conrad’s “Lord Jim,” in which the hero spends his life atoning for an act of cowardice and betrayal committed in his youth. It not only gave readers an intimate look at Afghanistan and the difficulties of life there, but it also showed off its author’s accessible and very old-fashioned storytelling talents: his taste for melodramatic plotlines; sharply drawn, black-and-white characters; and elemental boldfaced emotions. Whereas “The Kite Runner” focused on fathers and sons, and friendships between men, his latest novel, “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” focuses on mothers and daughters, and friendships between women. Whereas “Kite Runner” got off to a gripping start and stumbled into contrivance and sentimentality in its second