Playground
A Novel
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4.4 • 240 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
New York Times Bestseller
Finalist for the 2024 Kirkus Prize
Longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize
As Seen on CBS Saturday Morning • A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • One of the Ten Best Books of the Year, according to the Washington Post and AARP • A Time Must-Read Book of the Year • An NPR "Books We Love" Pick • An Economist, New Yorker, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
"Prepare to be awed.… [A]stonishing." —Ron Charles, Washington Post
The magisterial novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory and Bewilderment.
Four lives are drawn together in a sweeping, panoramic 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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The divergent requirements of economy, technology, and ecology twist and turn throughout Richard Powers’ haunting novel. As teens, Todd Keane and Rafi Young bonded over their shared passion for games. Decades later, Todd is a tech billionaire, while Rafi, married to their mutual college friend Ina Aroita, lives on the South Pacific island of Makatea, where the populace is faced with a business opportunity that might be impossible to pass up. With that friendship at the center, Powers delivers a complex tale that incorporates AI, neocolonialism, climate change, and numerous other big-ticket issues. The early revelation that Todd is suffering from a form of dementia casts doubt on his strands of narration. Meanwhile, the island setting allows for a deep dive into the dire oceanic ecological crisis, using prose that feels like a eulogy. Powers does a lot of juggling in Playground, and like someone twirling chain saws, the controlled chaos is mesmerizing.
Customer Reviews
A pleasure to read
Beautifully written. Ending long in coming and then quickly wrapped up.
Brilliant
Timeless but also timely. So many threads come together beautifully with twists and turns and variations on some of the most important themes of the 21st century.
Characters great and small, human and not. A tour de force of empathy.
The master of writing and genius author
Forever Richard Powers will be my absolute favorite author, from the very first sentence I read of his I’ve been profoundly immensely impressed inspired and have an admiration for his brilliance that knows no bounds.