Powers has such a way with words that in my mind, the story is secondary. In Playground, he effortlessly weaves between different characters and locales, all while feeding you some insight into the wonders of the ocean. It's a mesmerizing book that gently lulled me from page to page in a satisfying way.

You wouldn't expect so many different plot points to gel together - an AI tech billionaire from Chicago, a Black poet/writer, an islander and artist, and a nonagenarian with more diving experience that just about anyone.

When the French Polynesian island Makatea is up for a controversial vote, all of these characters and their challenges come together at last. I really enjoyed the journey this story took me along, and this was a worthy contender for the Booker longlist.

Wow. A few years ago I read “The Overstory,” a mindblowing tale of trees, activism, and character. It’s quite possible that in “Playground” Richard Powers exceeded the brilliance of “The Overstory.”

12-year-old Evie’s father straps a prototype of an aqualung onto her and throws her in a pool, launching her a lifelong obsession with being underwater. Ina grows up on naval bases on Pacific islands. Todd and Rafi, boys from opposite cultures in Chicago, meet in school and find purpose and meaning in a 3,000-year-old board game. As they grown and change, their lives begin to overlap until in late middle-age they meet again on an island in French Polynesia.

Between that first dive and the final scene on the island, we drift hypnotically through coral reefs, painful decisions by the characters, technological leaps, climate change, a changing world.

The book was at times baffling. Three days later I’m still pondering the ending. But I feel like living inside that book for a week was a joy and a privilege and confirmed for me just how lucky we are to have Richard Powers writing in our time.

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced reader’s copy of this book.

Another brilliant and capacious work from Richard Powers, who illuminates the ocean's marvels as he illuminated the trees for us in THE OVERSTORY.

"As Arthur C. Clarke has observed, 'How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.'"

I almost don't know where to begin with a review of this beautifully-written novel. Once again Richard Powers has drawn our attention to the environment--this time to our magnificent oceans and the amazingly rich habitat that comprises two-thirds of this planet.

But at its heart, this is the tale of three friends and a deep exploration of their relationships. The chief narrator is Todd Keane who feels the need to record everything, telling his story to 'someone,' and for a long time I believed he was telling that story to me, the reader. But no, it is something much more than that.

Todd grew up in a 'castle' in Evanston, IL, where he listened to his wealthy parents battle through an unhappy marriage. Todd's refuge became Lake Michigan where he imagined himself sinking beneath the surface and breathing underwater. He learned one way to earn his father's esteem was to excel at game playing and he was 10 the first time he beat his 37-year-old father at backgammon. (Make it 3 out of 5?) Board games led to electronic games and eventually to computers.

As Todd relates this story, he's 57, his net worth is in the billions, and he's created a platform known as Playground with over a billion users. Now one of his companies is bringing an idea for creating autonomous floating cities to an island in the South Pacific.

Todd met his best friend, Rafi Young, at St Ignatius of Loyola College Prep. Rafi, the son of a black Chicago fire fighter, was encouraged by his father to become a reader at an early age and his intelligence lifted him out of Chicago's South Side. But Rafi always felt he had destroyed his family and he carries that guilt in a pursuit of perfection.

The two friends eventually go off to the University of Illinois together, one to study computer science and the other literature, where they meet an artist named Ina Aroita, a Pacific Islander. The three quickly become inseparable and both young men fall in love...

Now, years later, Ina and Rafi are married and living on the island of Makatea in French Polynesia with two children they have adopted. The island's 82 residents have learned they have a decision to make. Should they allow a new business venture to invade their idyllic paradise?

One of the newer residents of the island is a 92-year-old woman named Evelyne Beaulieu, whose father was one of the scientists who invented the aqualung, and at 12, she tested it out for him at the bottom of their family pool. She went on to be the first woman in ocean studies and the author of Clearly It Is Ocean, the book that so entranced young Todd at the age of 10.

The story is quite involved but eventually all these threads come together in a very meaningful way. I read the first 20% late one evening and the next morning realized I'd have to reread what I'd read the night before and make notes of all the characters.

There are so many themes as well. Todd sounds a warning of where technology is probably leading us. But the great beauty of the novel is the ocean and what is to be found beneath the surface that so few can see. What gorgeous descriptive writing!

Many thanks to the author and publisher for providing me with an arc of this magnificent new novel. I have now read three of Richard Powers's books, all of which have been 5-star reads for me. Obviously I'm blown away by his writing.

Playground by Richard Powers is a highly recommended literary eco-drama of AI and oceanography that follows four different personal perspectives over decades. Opening on the French Polynesian island of Makatea the creation myth of Ta'aroa cracking out of his eggshell, and uses the shards to make the world is told. On Makatea, which was once mined for the deposits of phosphorus on the island, the residents must now vote on whether they want to approve a seasteading project on and off their shores.

Jumping back in time, twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu tests one of the first aqualungs and goes on to become a celebrated Canadian marine biologist and one of the world's best divers. She is now in her nineties and lives on the island. Rafi Young and Todd Keane meet at an elite Chicago high school and bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game called Go. The two are roommates in college where Rafi focuses on literature while Todd works toward a breakthrough in AI. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. At college Rafi falls in love with Ina whose mother is Tahitian.

The lives of these four people all converge on Makatea. Evie, Rafi, and Ina all live on the island. Todd is behind the seasteading project to create artificial islands that will be launch to float on the sea. Todd tells part the story of the past involving Rafi in retrospect at age 57, while he is dealing with his diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies. He is not always a reliable narrator. The main characters are all well-developed, but also feel a bit idealized or symbolic.

As expected, Powers writes eloquently, with wonderfully descriptive passages. There are parts that soar and will totally hold your complete attention. He writes with reverence about the natural world. Many of the underwater passages are spellbinding. He explores friendship, AI, and play. On the other hand, many of the complex passages require great patience to read, which makes the flow and pace of the novel feel uneven. Parts felt incomplete, unrealized and the final denouement felt too open ended. Thanks to W. W. Norton & Company for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Edelweiss, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Playground is a stunner with more beautiful writing than you’ll find in a dozen other completely respectable novels combined. The story is sprawling and interconnected and seemingly about everything—from artificial intelligence to dying oceans to the tenuous connections between human beings—which is to say it’s complex, but infinitely rewarding.

Richard Powers needs no introduction. He's prolific and The Overstory has to been one of the most read books of the 2010s. Each Powers novel is deeply imbued with big questions about the universe and life (as in the existence of). Playground is no different. A story of capitalism, climate change, and how everything in the universe is connected as one giant existence, Playground will have you thinking about it for days after you finish reading.

I don't have the best track record with Powers and I probably wouldn't have picked this one up, had it not been for the Booker Longlist. There are definitely very interesting concepts in this one. I've been discussing the ending of this one so much since finishing it. I find myself both annoyed and fascinated and thinking about it. I'm really excited to have more people read this because there are some really discussable things in this. I would also be curious to read any interviews etc. with the author. This one is really hard for me to rate because if the author meant things to be taken a certain way, my rating would be infinitely higher than if it were meant to be taken a different way.

Thank you so much to WW Norton for the ARC.

When a novel is this good, I feel any words I might add in praise of it will be too paltry. Just know that the characters, the settings, the storyline, and the relevance are all so amazingly and seamlessly melded into this work of art.

Thanks to NetGalley and W.W.Norton and Company for the ARC to read and review.

PLAYGROUND
Richard Powers

Although Richard Powers’ PLAYGROUND is not published in the US yet, it has been longlisted for THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024. It is due to be released on September 24, 2024. The themes in this book are indicative of and like many other titles on the list.

If all the books have a similar theme it is SYMBIOSIS.

But I’m getting ahead of myself and we’re only talking about PLAYGROUND here today. So let’s take a step back and talk about it.

My first experience with Richard Powers didn’t go over well. I DNF’d OVERSTORY and although it was an Oprah Book Club choice, I decided it wasn’t for me. Then I read BEWILDERMENT and was blown away. Powers’ connection to language and to the Earth is extraordinary. And to be a part of it as a reader is a wonderful experience.

PLAYGROUND features characters, but it is more about how we interact with our environment and secondly how we interact with each other. One prominent storyline features a curious young boy who grows into a successful businessman. To have that success he essentially must unbecome a lot of who he is. The two identities cannot exist in the same body.

Is there a version of you that you need to let go of to allow a new rendition to come in?

PLAYGROUND is about symbiosis. How when two things come together a new thing is born. There is no end of us and a beginning to the universe. We extend beyond our human form and part of our expression as humans is how we treat this part of us that is the universe.

You are not a human in the universe. You are the universe.

It is a lot about how we interact with our environment. It’s also about the lasting changes we make to our environment. How all of us who inhabit the EARTH change it for the worse.

In some ways Powers is a literary boy scout. Who wants us to leave this Earth better than we found it. It is in our nature to have dominion over all. To do that we must first have dominion over ourselves.

And every single choice we make as we make it through our days and nights makes a difference. Sam recycling in New York, helps the fish in the deep blue sea in California. Every time we litter or drive our cars, or water our yards unnecessarily, we take. From the forests to the oceans and everything in and between continents.
If you want a flavor of all the books, PLAYGROUND is the one I recommend. An easy Five Stars.

*Full-cast narration


Thanks to W.W. Norton, Netgalley and Spotify Audiobooks for the advanced copies!

PLAYGROUND… ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My favorite books are those that make me feel deep emotion, think critically and linger long after reading. Playground by Richard Powers does all of these. The Overstory is my favorite book of all time so I was very excited to read Playground. The rich character development of Evelyne, Rafi and Todd carried the book through a story about environmental degradation, climate change, colonialism, capitalism and AI. So many immense topics but they are woven together beautifully and the twist at the end caught me completely off guard. Playground is a love story to the ocean as The Overstory is to trees. The descriptions of ocean life are breathtaking and Evelyne’s story completely captivated me. Highly, highly recommend.

Thank you to Net Galley and W.W. Norton & Company for the the opportunity to read an ARC of this book.

Astounding work from Richard Powers. Relevant and affecting. Highly enjoyed this one, the plot, the characters, the setting. Powerful book.

Richard Powers is one heck of a writer. In his books, he finds a magical way of elucidating big world issues, like the cosmos or the environment, while at the same time capturing the very real, very human experiences of his characters in an evocative way. Playground weaves a fascinating tale of four different characters who eventually all wind up on the Polynesian Island of Makatea. It's an exploration of the possibilities of AI, of the human impact on the environment, of the complexity of relationships, and of the consequences of our actions and desires. Every step of the way, there's something beautiful and something to think about and I guarantee this book will make you feel things! I couldn't put it down and I'm in awe of what Powers has created here. Maybe the best book I've read so far this year!

As I anticipated, Playground by Richard Powers is brilliant. It is a breathtaking meditation on the wonders of the ocean, a devastating consideration of both the wonders of technology and the sometimes evils those technologies have wrought, and interlocking stories that brought me to truly care about the characters Powers introduced me to. The structure of the stories worked well for me, as I followed along in the various timelines and so the intersections of past and future as both the narratives and the characters developed. Powers's descriptions - of life in the ocean, of coding, of racism, of the various time periods - were engrossing. Like Powers's other books, I suspect this one will be an award winner, and I will recommend it strongly for readers interested in complex stories with messages for the endangered world we now inhabit.

This story, told from multiple perspectives over decades, boils down to eco-suspense. A shadowy American group with extreme wealth seeks permission from Pacific island Makatea to build a seasteading project on and off their shores, and the residents are forced to weigh the potential upsides of technology and development over ecological harm and loss of autonomy. The interlacing narratives follow a handful of characters, most of whom are from North America, as their values and divisions develop over time. The full implications of their connection to Makatea's decision is revealed towards the end,
The three (or four) main characters are well developed; their reasoning makes sense and their surprise when handed a bombshell is satisfying to read. The Makateans themselves are given some platform to explain their positions, but not at the same level of depth; their interiority is comparatively surface-level, which is unfortunate, but likely because they don't figure in the personal drama that animates the plot.
[Spoiler alert:] The ending might be the weakest point for me: fantastical, both in its convenient problem solving, as well as the White Savior flavor (it would be nice if the Makateans were given more agency in their choice of colonialism vs deprivation, but maybe that would be the real fantasy?).
Overall, I really enjoyed my first Richard Powers novel. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I love the richness of Richard Powers' descriptions the natural world and the way he creates his ensemble casts with gentleness and a caring eye. I previously enjoyed OVERSTORY and BEWILDERMENT, and this one was not a disappointment. Powers is an author who, it seems to me, continues to experiment with craft and structure with each novel, so it's always exciting to see what he does with his next one.

This is a story about two men who meet as children and grow up together. Both are brilliant in their own ways. It's sort of like MY BRILLIANT FRIEND vibes, but boys in America. Their paths diverge after a significant falling out, and one goes on to be a tech billionaire while the other pursues a love of knowledge and art. Mixed up in all this is AI, and I won't say more about that, but how he uses it is veeerry interesting.

Anyway, this was a great read. Definitely worth checking out.

Full disclosure: I requested this on NetGalley, because I like to read the Booker longlist every year (and also because I always enjoy Richard Powers' books). Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the free ARC.

For a novel that bounces through time and across the globe, Playground feels incredibly intimate; at its heart, it is an exploration of the way the lives of four people are shaped by their relationships to nature, technology, and each other. Playground's shifting point of view provides insight into both the complexities of its character's lives and how those complexities are regarded by those that know and love them. And always, thrumming in the background, is the ocean, which Powers portrays with a respect and awe that feels contagious. I loved reading Playground for its deft character studies, nonlinear structure, and gorgeous use of play as a motif, but I loved it just as much for introducing me to coconut crabs, pistol shrimp, and giant manta rays. As in his last novel, Bewilderment, Powers is interested in putting the unknown questions of new technology, and particularly AI, next to the oldest mysteries we know: space, the ocean, the unexplainable distances between the people who know each other best. Playground has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and it is one of my favorite books of the year so far. Deeply nerdy, profoundly relevant, absolutely beautiful.

I was intrigued to see Richard Powers back on the Booker list, this time with a novel about technology, AI, and ocean life. A bit of a strange combination when you first think about it, but in Playground, Powers uses his main characters to draw connections between the two subjects.

The novel focuses on Todd, a billionaire, Rafi, a Black man growing up in Chicago, and Evelynne, a French-Canadian deep-sea diver. It follows Rafi and Todd as they grow up together in Chicago and Evie’s path to becoming the first female diver, alternating with Todd's reminiscences from the future as he is diagnosed with dementia.

Where Powers excels is the nature writing, as you might expect if you are familiar with his other books. He truly immerses the reader in the undersea world. I found myself Googling many of the creatures Powers mentions and being awed by their beauty.

All of the characters are stereotypes: the White man billionaire, the girl-boss diver, the Black man trying to break free from his troubled past, island girl stuck on the continent. This becomes partially explained by the ending of the book, but reading these characters was at times frustrating because of how they played into these stereotypes. Other parts of the book, such as the endless discussion of the board game Go, were not interesting to me but I can see how Powers was leveraging it for the larger story. That all said, there were other parts of this book that I flew through, especially as it ramped up toward the end.

The ending is a big twist, which I started to see coming in the last quarter of the book. The twist is ultimately what led me to dislike the book overall. I won’t reveal the twist but it felt a bit gimmicky and was disappointing.

Overall liked the premise but didn’t love the execution.

Playground is my favorite Powers novel to date. This was a remarkable story that weaves through locations and times and narrators much like the movements of the ocean, which is itself arguably the largest character in the book. I never had any trouble following whose story we were in or in what time period, and I fell in love with the ocean through Powers's lyrical writing. This is a book about friendship, about play, about exploration and nature and humanity. I found it completely absorbing and compelling. Thank you to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for a digital review copy.

In Playground, Richard Powers explores themes that will not surprise anyone who has read some of his previous books: artificial intelligence,, climate change, the societal impacts of selfish development projects financed by wealthy investors, and the environment, among others. In this book, his focus is on the ocean, filled with incredibly beautiful and miraculous creatures but also increasingly with plastic detritus. Told through several characters and stories, it is not until the end of the book that they come together powerfully and somewhat unexpectedly. I both read and listened to this book and very much appreciate the narrators of the audio version, whose work greatly enhanced my experience. There is no question that Powers is one of our masters of literature and it is the force and beauty of his writing that elevates the book. He and I interacted occasionally when we both worked at the University of Illinois and it was fun to see some of the book set there, especially in the Main Library. But it is the ocean that is the star of Playground, with artificial intelligence cast in a major role. Playground has earned its place on the current Booker Prize long list.