Playground
Four lives are drawn together in a sweeping, panoramic new novel from Richard Powers, showcasing the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world's first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane's work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.
They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity's next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island's residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.
Set in the world's largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.
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Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His most recent book, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. He lives in the Great Smoky Mountains.
An epic drama of AI, neocolonialism, and oceanography ... dazzling. ... [T]he elegance of [Powers's] prose, the scope of his ambition, and the exacting reverence with which he writes about the imperiled world serve as reminders of why he ranks among America's foremost novelists. ... Readers will be awed.-- "Publishers Weekly"
Is there anything Richard Powers cannot write? The world here is complete, seductive, and promising. The writing feels like the ocean. Vast, mysterious, deep, and alive.--Percival Everett
An extraordinarily immersive journey through lives linked in mysterious ways--gripping, alarming, and uplifting.--Emma Donoghue
Powers is a master of taking important topics of our times--from threats to our oceans and climate change to AI--and turning them into riveting and fiercely relevant books imbued with psychological insight and a deep awe for nature. This eloquent dance of the scientific and emotional makes him one of our finest storytellers. Playground is brilliant, captivating, and important--and the best book I've read this year.--Andrea Wulf
Compelling, with fine writing on friendship and its loss and on the awe and delight the ocean inspires.... An engaging, eloquent message for this fragile planet.--Kirkus Reviews, starred review
A characterful, capacious and engaging novel, distilling subjects as diverse as oceanography, climate change, the legacies of colonialism and the arc of a lifelong friendship into an exhilaratingly entangled narrative in which Powers' unparalleled gifts for revealing the magic and mystery of the natural world are on full display.--The 2024 Booker Prize Judges
History unspools in this luminous journey that interweaves a 3,000-year-old board game, AI and floating cities....all-around delightful.-- "People"
Vivid and ambitious...a love letter to the natural world....Playground is ravishing in its descriptions of an underwater universe as fragile as it is ancient and unyielding.--Taylor Antrim "Vogue"
Evocatively nuanced.... Rhapsodic with wonder, electric with cautionary facts and insights, Powers' profound and involving novel illuminates the conundrums of human nature.--Booklist, starred review
Ambitious, rapturous... A transcendentalist deep dive of a novel... What a lush, opaque world Powers conjures... A fabulous exploration.--Xan Brooks "Guardian"
Glorious...a transcendent novel about love....Powers's extraordinary novels are a rebuttal to the notion that what stirs the mind can't also stir the heart.--David Keymer "Library Journal"
Prepare to be awed... A mind-blowing reflection on what it means to live on a dying planet... I wasn't prepared for the astonishing resolution that Powers delivers. In the now-vast library of fiction and nonfiction books reminding us of the planet's imperiled condition, I can't think of another novel that treats the Earth's plight with such an expansive and disorienting vision... Powers manages to entwine our longing for friendship, paradise and immortality with the algorithms of artificial intelligence that surpass all understanding.--Ron Charles "Washington Post"
A richly layered story that examines the intersection of technology, nature, and personal relationships. Powers' signature blend of intellectual depth and compelling storytelling shines through... Thought-provoking literature that engages both the mind and heart.--Chaya Colman and Sophie Ezra "Glamour UK"
