One of the most anticipated books of the year! Wow…Playground is epic. The novel is long listed for the Booker. I will skip trying to summarize this book because I will fail to do it justice. It is a book you will want to take your time with. Themes are: technology, environment, AI, art, humanity, play and our vast and glorious unexplored oceans. If you loved the Overstory you will continued to be awed by Richard Powers. 🌊🪸🪼🐋

Evie is obsessed with the sea from a young age, going on countless dives throughout her life. Todd and Rafi become fast friends despite their different upbringings, bonding over their love of games. The inhabitants of a Polynesian island debate whether to allow foreigners to begin a new enterprise on their shores. These stories come together in Richard Powers’s latest novel, a tale of the bonds and joys of life.

I really liked a lot about this book, particularly in the beginning and middle. I found the characters and their stories extremely interesting, in particular Evie and Todd/Rafi in their school days. I genuinely enjoyed reading about them. I think it’s a great depiction of wonder and awe, the things that shock and astound us, large and small. Powers’s writing only serves to highlight this; it is rich, vivid, and lovely.

I do, however, think that an author reaches a certain status at which their editors just don’t edit their books. It doesn’t feel like there is enough here to warrant its length, and it definitely drags in many places. It would definitely have benefited from some cuts. There are lots of descriptions of sea life that go on for pages, and, while beautiful, they don’t add much or drive the plot forward. There are also some problematic sections about people of color, Rafi in particular, that had me cringing.

The ending was an issue for me too, in that I have no idea what happened. I’m not sure whether I missed something, but I truly cannot figure it out.

I think my biggest issue is that much of this feels derivative of THE OVERSTORY, which I loved. Reading this almost cheapened that story for me. The overall structure of the story, the computer portion, even some of the characters — the similarities kept piling up. It was extremely frustrating.

Overall, intriguing and engaging with great style, but definitely has its issues in the end. Three stars.

There were so many interesting explorations here of oceanography, AI, board games, and more. I was so impressed by the breadth of research Powers does for his books—this one and The Overstory. The plot and character relationships were so moving, though the ending left me a bit conflicted. I also struggled with some of the dialogue and descriptions he attributed to his Black character, Rafi, which at times felt like it devolved into stereotypes.

If you’re like me and are fascinated by the ocean, its vastness, eco system, and all the creatures that reside there then I think you’re going to enjoy this one just as much as I did.

Told from multiple perspective that all connect in one way or another. This story tackles so much, from the first female deep sea diver, to the creation of the internet, and eventually the world of AI. It’s hard to put into words just how fantastic, beautiful, and heartbreaking story was. I was profoundly impacted by it and I’m confident it will stay with me for the rest of my life.

With multiple narrators this was an absolutely superb audio, highly recommend!

4 ⭐️

I really enjoyed listening to this one! Chapters followed various characters’ points of view and I loved that each character had their own narrator. The narrators were fantastic and I was fully immersed in the story.

I did not enjoy Overstory, but the characters and story in Playground captivated me and kept my attention. Yes, there is still a powerful message, but, in my opinion, it was more subtly done and less in your face than in Overstory.

Thank you to NetGalley and Spotify Audiobooks for an advanced copy of this audiobook.

This was a beautifully written novel with different storylines that come together around the beauty of the ocean. It will certainly make the best reads of 2024.

Thank you for this ARC.#Spotify #PlaygroundRichardPowers #NetGalley

I think I would have enjoyed this book in print, rather than as an audiobook. The narration was good, and the writing is beautiful, but there was just too much going on to follow it as a listener. I found myself drifting off and needing to rewind to try not to miss anything. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ALC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a stunning story. This is a story about Rafi and Todd, two brilliant boys, who meet in high school and become fast friends. While Todd hails from a white, well-off background, Rafi is African American from the underprivileged sections of Chicago. Both boys however have dysfunctional families. It is the story of Ina, Rafi's girlfriend with a Pacific Islander for a mother. It is also the story of Evie Beaulieu who is an expert and passionate female diver, a pioneer in her time. It is the story of Makatea, an island in the French Polynesian cluster with barely 82 inhabitants and a painful history. However, at its heart and soul, this is the of the ocean in all its magical glory and its abundance of fascinating marine creatures, It is the story of the never-ending battle between nature and human quest for development. There is an ever-present theme of evolution through the story, whether it be evolution in nature, human friendships or technology. The author has done a fantastic job of melding myth, folklore, history with modern technology like AI. This is also a beautiful tale about human relationships, love, loss and redemption. If you are a fan of Labutat's Maniac or Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow you will love this book. Listening to the audiobook definitely is the way to savor this beautiful prose. Ethereal!!
Thank you Netgalley and Spotify Audiobooks for the ALC.

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… ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

3/5 ⭐️
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity of giving me this ARC in exchange of my honest review. This is the first novel I read of Richard Powers and I really enjoyed the depth he goes on characters development, as well as how interesting they were. I must confess the ending threw me off, I am not sure if I miss something but I couldn’t understand it at all. I am looking forward however, reading more books by this author.

The audio narrators were excellent. The story is told from many different perspectives and I liked some characters more than others. The ending left me confused.

Playground by Richard Powers was an absolute joy to read. The rich cast of characters pulled me in right from the start, and I loved how deeply we got to know each of them. While there were a few moments where certain traits were stated rather than shown, it didn’t take away from the experience. The storytelling kept me on my toes the entire time—I found myself constantly guessing how everything would come together, and the way it unfolded was both surprising and beautiful. The writing itself was gorgeous, adding even more layers to the already captivating narrative. A five-star read for sure!
The audiobook and the various narrators were also really good and made it a very enjoyable experience.

Thanks to NetGalley and Spotify Audiobooks for the advanced copy!

I have never previously read a book by Powers, despite owning a copy of The Overstory. I picked this particular book up in an effort to read the entire 2024 Booker Longlist. Upon finishing it, I’m not quite sure what to think.

Playground is a long, meandering journey. Nothing is straight to the point and at first everything seems disconnected, but the beauty is that as the story progresses everything seems to weave together through our 4 different main characters. It leaves the story feeling both fragmented and complete which is an odd combination.

For me, the best part of this story was Evelyne a forward thinking, deep sea scuba diver. I related very much to her for a multitude of reasons, but primarily in her breaking into the boys club attitude and her passion for the underwater world. As a scuba diver myself, I really loved the descriptions of the ocean.

I did struggle with following everything that was happening in the book. This is clearly really smart writing and I think it would be easy for the average reader to miss bits and pieces.

All in all, this was an interesting experience. I can’t say that I absolutely loved this book, but I didn’t hate it either. I appreciated a lot of its messaging around tech and nature in particular.

The audiobook is also a fantastic option. The narrator reads the various portions very well.

Playground, in this novel, has layers of meaning. To a young islander, it is the world that opens up to her when her father literally throws her in the sea with one of the first types of self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA). She is weighted down and scared. He tells her to just breathe. When she does, her life - and the world of the ocean - opens up before her. Playground is a chessboard and then a Go board for two young boys from very different backgrounds who meet in high school and room together at university. They, too, have fathers who demand much (but in their case, give little). One of them later names his software Playground. It also refers to the way in which traditional colonizers view the rest of the world: theirs to extract resources, “civilize” inhabitants, and then neglect.
So it’s no surprise that there are heavy messages underlying all the gorgeous descriptions of underwater life and the accessible stories of the boys’ fraught pasts.
So many things in this novel resonated with me: SCUBA diving, Chicago, a love of books and reading, beachcombing, the game of Go, when my father threw one of my brothers into a pool so he’d learn to swim, creating art by upcycling….the list goes on!
Playground is a book about relationships with people, with nature, and with ourselves. I have enjoyed the Richard Powers novels I have read to date, and this one does not disappoint.
My thanks to the author, publisher, producer, and #NetGalley for early access to #Playground for review purposes.

Playground by Richard Powers is a mind-bending masterpiece that left me utterly captivated. The ending was so unexpected and thought-provoking that I couldn't help but go back and reread it immediately. After diving into another ocean-themed book with magic, this one was a refreshing change of pace. Powers' ability to weave together complex themes and characters is truly remarkable. If you're looking for a thought-provoking and intellectually stimulating read, I highly recommend Playground. It's a 5-star experience that will stay with you long after you finish the last page.

I really wanted to love this, but it was so hard to read. I don't mean to say I shy away from hard to read texts. I mean it in that it felt heavy despite the content being not especially emotionally charged for me. There is just too much. There are too many POVs with an entirely epic setting in terms of both time and place from the depths of the Pacific Ocean to Chicago to Makatea Island. There are beautiful little moments, such as every conversation about the industrialization of Makatea. If the entire book focused on just the simplicity of this island over the years, I'd have loved it perfectly. Instead, this novel sprawls through backstory and modern AI concerns and a midlife sexuality crisis.
I listened to the audiobook and each narrator did a great job of bringing life to their POV. I found each distinct and especially loved the speaker reading Evelyne's chapters.
Thanks to NetGalley and Spotify Audiobooks for this advanced copy to review!

This is my first Richard Powers read, an author many fellow readers have breathlessly recommended to me over the years. I can see how the scope of perspectives and environmental activism and wonder can be quite immersive in this kind of narrative. However, despite the brilliant cast of narrators elevating the language of wonder about deep sea wonders and seafaring civilizations, it was hard for me to overlook the limitations of the author. For all the clever turns of phrases and intersecting lives and narratives, ultimately it doesn't break any new grounds of wisdom in the realms that the author dabbles in, be it colonialism, racism, feminist pioneers in environmental activism, or most jarringly, in the realm of artificial intelligence. I might've been more impressed if I hadn't read much more transformative works striking the same balance of perspectives by QTPOC authors in genre without the lofty airs of "literary fiction". So many interesting and intersectional POVs squandered by a cishet white lack of imagination.

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!

In a single work, Powers demonstrates an astonishing range of storytelling prowess, as exemplified in Playground. Juggling multiple narratives and seemingly disparate themes, he skillfully weaves them together into a grand finale reminiscent of the harmonious yet powerful conclusion of a symphony.

At its core, the narrative follows the intersecting paths of two characters, Todd Keane and Rafi Young, who meet as adolescents. Despite their outward differences—Keane hailing from privilege and Young from a troubled background—the boys share a common thread of familial dysfunction and emotional turmoil. While Rafi finds solace in literature, Todd immerses himself in technology, particularly the burgeoning realm of the Internet following a personal tragedy.

Throughout the book, the motif of game playing pervades the narrative, alongside the theme of ecology symbolized by the vast and teeming life within the ocean. As Rafi and Todd transition from chess to the intricate game of Go, Evie Bourlieu undergoes a transformative experience in a water tank, propelling her towards a lifelong exploration of the ocean's depths.

Meanwhile, on a Pacific island, the inhabitants grapple with the legacy of exploitation by Europeans and face a new wave of Western influence. The title of the book reverberates throughout the narrative, echoing in various tones and keys, revealing unexpected layers of play and reflection.

Powers' evocative descriptions of oceanic life captivate the reader with their poetic richness, juxtaposed with a poignant reminder of the devastation wrought by human actions. The narrative unfolds as a captivating and thought-provoking exploration of interconnected lives, the power of play, and the profound impact of human presence on the natural world.

Todd Keane, a white youth from a wealthy family, and Rafi Young, a black youth from a rough neighborhood, are both intelligent high school students with an interest in games such as Chess and Go. They become fast friends. Todd becomes a scientist-programmer interested in artificial intelligence. He is an early developer of a combined social media and gaming platform propelled by artificial intelligence. Rafi devotes his life to literature and poetry. Ina Aroita is an artist, who grew up in a series of Naval bases across the Pacific. The three meet at the University of Illinois, and both men are smitten with her. The three develop a strong bond. Evelyne Beaulieu is a diver and lover of the ocean, its environment, and all its creatures. She is older than the other three, coming of age during a time when women are not welcomed into scientific fields. Each of the four has ties to the (real) Pacific Island of Makatea, which becomes the site targeted for a corporation’s plans to build and launch autonomous cities into the ocean. The island’s residents must decide whether to allow the project to proceed, weighing jobs, money, and growth against destruction of the local ecosystem, particularly coral reefs and marine life.

The storyline follows the lives of the four protagonists and how they influence each other. A rift eventually separates the friends, and this conflict drives the plot forward. Richard Powers has an impressive ability to fashion an engaging story out of diverse topics – in this case, marine biology, art, literature, environmentalism, artificial intelligence and other technologies. One of the primary themes is the connection between humans and nature, particularly with respect to play. Humans play, animals play, and the ocean can be viewed as a playground for both. The area of science and technology is also a playground in many respects (e.g., instances for experimenting with computer programs are called “sandboxes.”) Games and gaming involve play. Richard Powers is one of my favorite authors. He is a fabulous storyteller, and he has, once again, created a beautiful narrative that addresses many relevant topics in today’s world. I loved it. I am adding it to my list of favorite books, and I am certain it will be on my short list of top reads for the year.