Post #3: Book 1 Project: Fan Experience

Looking For Alaska

     Become the newest student at Culver Creek by signing up to be a member of the Looking For Alaska website. This virtual experience offers many features including games, quizzes, and the ability to interact with not only other members, but also the author himself! Pull off Culver Creek's biggest prank yet or become Miles and guess whose infamous last words belong to. These are only two of the exciting games you could play at the Looking For Alaska website. Participate in discussion boards with others who have read the book. You can read Q and A's from the author and even ask him a question yourself! Take the quiz to find out which student at Culver Creek you are. The website offers an interactive experience with the book and the man who wrote it.
     When Mile's realizes his current life is more than boring, he enrolls at Culver Creek to experience what he calls the Great Perhaps. "I was after a Great Perhaps, and they knew as well as I did that I wasn't going to find it with the likes of Will and Marie." His life goes from zero to sixty as soon as he arrives. He joins a group of friends, Chip, Alaska, Takumi, and Laura, who spend their days plotting and trying to out do their latest prank. On the website, you can take a personality quiz to find out which member of the group you are most like. What they call the pre-prank, consists of sabotaging the weekday warriors, a group of students with a lot of money who go home on the weekends. In the game, you would go through the same adventure, replacing their shampoo with blue dye and  hacking into the school's computer to send home false progress reports. "He loves that hair. They leave their hair products here, Pudge, because they have duplicates at home." The goal would be to complete the prank without being caught by the school's principal known as the eagle.  Along with this prank, you would also be able to carry out the group's biggest prank, getting a stripper to act as a guest speaker. The characters all have unique personalities and gifts. When the Colonel, Chip, asks Mile's what his talent is, he tells him that he memorizes last words. "It was an indulgence, learning last words. Other people had chocolate; I had dying declarations." Mile's obsession with last words becomes apparent when tragedy strikes Culver Creek. On the website, you would be able to test your own skills and try and guess who said which famous last words.
     The Looking For Alaska website was created with the fans in mind. It offers a chance to become apart of a school where there's never a dull moment. Fans will love the games that allow them to feel like they're experiencing what their favorite characters experienced. The personality quiz will make them feel more connected to a specific character. Being able to discuss with other fans of the book will give readers a sense of community. They'll feel like they all share a special connection that only those who read the book will understand. The ability to interact directly with the author will provide an opportunity you wont be able to get anywhere else. The virtual experience will further connect fans to the book, as well as intrigue those who haven't yet read the book.

Post #2: What is a Book?

           I believe a book is the words that make up the story. Books are similar to people. A person is not defined (hopefully) by their outer appearance and physical characteristics, but rather their experiences and personality. People like to argue over whether a book is only a book if it's in its physical form. I think we should be more focused on keeping people reading no matter what from it is in. If books becoming digitized is what's going to keep people reading, then I see no problem with it. Tom Piazza says in an interview, "If you like to read your books on an Etch A Sketch, that's fine with me. Especially if you're reading my books." As long as the stories are being read, the author's words survive, and I think that's the most important thing. Some people say that paper books are dying or going extinct. More people are reading books digitally, but I don't see books going away anytime soon. Books are still being produced whether they're available digitally or not. Personally, I like having a physical copy of the book. Nothing about staring at a screen for hours sounds appealing to me. I like flipping to the final page in a book and being able to see physically what I just read and in a way, accomplished. When you finish a book on an e-reader or other device, it's as if the book disappears once you finish it. However, if it's other peoples' preference to read a book from a screen, it doesn't bother me at all. They're still reading the same words and reading the same story. I don't think having a physical copy of a book gives you anymore perspective or insight into the book.

         Books give us an escape we cannot reach through just watching T.V. or a movie. Reading requires you to use your imagination and think about the words on the page. Joe Meno emphasizes this idea saying, "Television, film, and stage plays do not need us; they exist in completion whether we interact with them or not. But a book, a novel, a short story, even a comic book, needs us to complete the action, to see using our mind’s eye, which gets less use the older we get, the farther we step from childhood games of make-believe." When a book is not being read, it ceases to exist. It becomes nothing more than stack of paper and ink. We are the ones who bring a book to life by using our imagination and it is important that we continue to read our entire lives.