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A Novel
by Richard Powers
Book Reviewed by:A magisterial new 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 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.
Excerpt
Playground
I'M SUFFERING FROM WHAT we computer folks call latency. Retreating into the past, like my mother did in her last years. This curse doesn't always run in families, but sometimes it does. Who knows? Maybe my mother had it, too. Maybe the undiagnosed disease lay behind the accident that killed her.
As more recent months and years grow fuzzy, the bedrock events of my childhood solidify. Closing my eyes, I can see my first bedroom high up in the crow's nest of our Evanston Castle in more detail than memory should permit: the student desk cluttered with plastic sharks and rays. The shelf of deep-sea books. The globe of a fishbowl filled with guppies and swordtails. The closet piled high with masks and snorkels and dried sea fans and chunks of coral and fish fossils from the Devonian Period, bought at the Shedd Aquarium gift shop.
On the wall above my bed hung a framed article from the Trib dated January 1, 1970: "First in Line for the New Decade." I must have read that thing a...
What are you reading this week? (8/14/2025)
Playground by Richard Powers!! Amazing! Can't stop thinking about it!
-Barbette_T
What books have you enjoyed so far in 2025, what books are you looking forward to reading?
...what have your favorite reads been so far this year and are there any titles you're really looking forward to reading in the months ahead? Personally Playground by Richard Powers remains my favorite read of 2025 so far!
-nick
What are you reading this week? (6/12/2025)
Reading Playground by Richard Powers. My word! That author can write. I loved Echo Maker from the beginning when his descriptions of the migration floored me. Playground drew me in immed...
-Robin_G
What are you reading this week? (5/8/2025)
I just finished listening to Pam Jenoff's Last Twighlight in Paris, and slowly making my way to the end of the sprawling drama of The Antidote by Karen Russell. Once finished, I plan to begin reading Playground by Richard Power. I'm also reading The Busybody Book Club by Freya Sampson to review.
-Sunny
What book or books are you reading this week? (01/23/2025)
...being attacked by cyberbullies for speaking against censorship at a library board meeting. It's horrifying what she has had to endure. Just starting Playground by Richard Powers. Listening to Aflame by Pico Eyer.
-Anne_Glasgow
What did you think of the ending of Playground? (Spoilers!)
I love the multiple storylines throughout the book. Richard Powers has that unique ability to bring the wider unknowns of our inner and external environments into sharper focus. AI can only extrapolate the data it absorbs. It can not differentiate between the true life lived and the life regrette...
-Jolene_Blankley
What are your reading this week? (12-19-2024)
Reading Playground by Richard Powers. Such a powerful writer!
-Jolene_Blankley
What are your reading this week? (12-12-2024)
I just finished There are Rivers in the sky by Elif Shafak. She is such a lyrical writer. I will never think of a drop of water so casually again. Her first book was also a wonder. Currently reading Richard Powers book Playground. Another examination of the wondrous diverse life of the oceans.
-Jolene_Blankley
What are you reading this week? (11/07/2024)
.../book_number/4889/playground#reviews BookBrowse.com https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/4889/playground#reviews Book Review: Playground by Richard Powers The Pulitzer Award-winning author of The Overstory explores humanity's impact on the oceans in his new novel.
-kim.kovacs
As the narrative jumps unpredictably back and forth through time and space, Powers explores diverse themes such as friendships gained and lost; humanity's impact on the planet, especially its oceans; neocolonialism; sexism in the sciences; the development and future of artificial intelligence; and many others. If this all makes it sound like Playground is dense and complicated, there's a reason for that. But Powers' genius is his ability to form a cohesive and absorbing narrative from what at first seems to be a disorienting, unrelated mishmash of ideas...continued
Full Review
(690 words)
(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
Andrea Wulf
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. Emma Donoghue
An extraordinarily immersive journey through lives linked in mysterious ways―gripping, alarming, and uplifting. Percival Everett
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.In Richard Powers' novel Playground, best friends Todd and Rafi become obsessed with the board game Go (often capitalized in English to differentiate it from the common verb), and the pastime plays a large role in the narrative. According to the National Go Center, "Beyond being merely a game, Go can take on other meanings to its devotees: an analogy for life, an intense meditation, a mirror of one's personality, [an] exercise in abstract reasoning, a mental 'workout' or, when played well, a beautiful art in which black and white dance in delicate balance across the board."
Outwardly, Go is a relatively simple game that even young children can learn, although its endless permutations mean one might never master it. It's played on a ...
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