Playground

A Booker prize Longlist nominated novel!
In Playground, Powers explores the dangers and of technology and the quickly moving threat of climate change utilizing an international background and an unusual grouping of three best friends.

Rafi and Todd are a unique nerdy duo in their elite prep school that becomes three with the addition of Ina. Years later, the friends face off on the small island of Makatea of the Tahitian Islands. What happens between them all is an age old story made powerful and turbulent by Power's abilities. In the background of this relationship is a young woman who falls in love with the sea and her own work inspires millions.

Join Powers in his most powerful work to date - a commentary on culture, race and class, a work of utter beauty and above all, a hopeful yet clear call to action #wwnortoncompany #playground #richardpowers

If you're familiar with Powers' work, you'll be delighted to discover that his latest novel is yet another brilliant addition to his oeuvre. For those who haven't yet explored his writing, this book is an excellent starting point, but I highly recommend diving into his previous two novels as well. Together, they form a sort of thematic triptych, each echoing with the same intellectual depth, curiosity, and empathy that set Powers apart from other novelists. He's truly at the height of his powers with this one.

This novel is complex, with multiple narratives and perspectives, and it requires your full attention. But once you're immersed, you'll find yourself carried along by its literary force, never feeling lost at sea. Powers masterfully navigates through diverse realms, from the depths of the ocean to the intricacies of the cyber world, all the while weaving in a profoundly human love story. The result is a gripping, powerful read that reaffirms my gratitude for authors like Powers who continue to push boundaries and captivate readers. I have no doubt this book will be a strong contender on literary award shortlists this year.

In short, this is a spectacular novel. It's grand in its scope yet intimately rendered. Do yourself a favor and read it—it's already my top pick for 2024, and I can't imagine anything else surpassing it.

A heartfelt thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

This may be one of my favorite books ever. It certainly is my favorite of Richard Powers so far--and I am a big fan of Powers. I loved The Overstory.

Powers manages to do so much in a single work--more than seems possible--and Playground shows just how much he can do. He juggles multiples story lines and seemingly divergent themes--managing to pull them together in a grand finale that is like the thundering yet melodic conclusion to a great symphony.

On one level, the story revolves a set of characters. Todd Keane and Rafi Young meet as young teens. On the surface, the two boys seem quite different. Keane is the son of a successful businessman, securely white and privileged while Rafi comes from an obviously dysfunctional home in an impoverished community. As poor and an African American, Rafi is at an obvious disadvantage at his elite school, while Todd seamlessly belongs. But both boys comes from pain-filled (and pain-inflicting) families, each dysfunctional in its own way and equally incapable of nurturing their children.

Rafi seeks refuge in literature. Todd, who as a young boy dreamed of being an oceanographer, is drawn to technology. After experiencing a tragedy, he gives himself entirely to coding and exploring the newly emerging technology that becomes the Internet.

And always throughout the book there is the theme and activity of game playing. As well as that of ecology, seen through the lens of the ocean and the overwhelming multiplicity of life it contains.

As Rafi and Todd abandon chess for the more intensely challenging game of Go, Evie Bourlieu is submerged into a water tank by her father to test out a new apparatus for breathing underwater. This experiment is the catalyst for Evie for a lifetime devoted to submerging herself in the depths of the ocean.

Somewhere in an island in the Pacific ocean, the inhabitants are trying to recover from an exploitation of their land by Europeans that first enriched and then devastated them. Now the western world is back with a new offer.

The title of this book resonates throughout this book in many levels, many tones, many different keys. Sometimes completely unexpectedly I would realize that I was witnessing yet another echo, another game, another form of play.

Play that is absorbing, exciting, freeing. And sometimes--maybe ultimately and inevitably--lethal.

I was left breathless at the beauty of Powers' descriptions of ocean life, full of poetic lists that overwhelmed--only to leave the reader that much more grief-stricken by how much death we have caused, what desolation we have wreaked.

I found The Overstory exciting and fascinating but Playground moved me to tears (not usual for me when reading). This is Powers at his most passionate.

And the balance between the personal--the friendships, the ways in which we love, and help, and hurt each other--and the more abstract themes which become personalized, particularly through Evie but through the people on the island as well--is delicate and beautiful.

I love books that push me to think as well as enable me to feel.

I couldn't follow all of the tech talk but Powers presents a convincingly ominous depiction of AI's dangerous potential for humanity.

So: frightening, beautiful, moving, exciting. And despite all the pain portrayed, the life force of humanity--and of the planet--and maybe just of the use of so much beautiful language left me energized (and not depressed which could easily have happened).

I would wish the good fortune of reading this book on everyone. For how it delivers pleasure, beauty, excitement. And for its potential to maybe reawaken--or just awaken--our love for this precious, fragile planet before it is too late.

I want to thank NetGalley for giving me this book, W. W Norton & Co. for publishing it, and Richard Powers for gifting the world with it.

Playground will be released in September, 2024.

I'm fairly new to Richard Powers writing, having only read his two previous novels, The Overstory and Bewilderment. Yet, after my reading of his latest, Playground, I can see the literary genius in him that is over and above any other author I've formerly read. In thinking about how to review this book, I have to admit that some of the subject matter in this novel is a little over my head. That being said, the rich, intelligent prose, and multiple learning opportunities presented for me, made this novel hard to put down. I looked forward to each time I'd be able to pick it up again.
Dwelling on themes of the environment, diving and oceanography, AI, technology, video gaming, chess and the Chinese board game Go, as well as the multiple characters whose lives eventually intersect on the island of Makatea in French Polynesia–this book is huge in scope. Delving into questions about the future, both of humans and nature, Playground is an important and multi-faceted work of art that I have no doubt will stay with me for some time.
Thank you NetGalley and W.W. Norton for the advance reading copy!

Richard Powers has crafted an epic tale of friendship, ambition, activism, marriage and community while slyly teaching us about the wonders of the oceans and a multitude of other subjects. Trying to put this book into a tidy little genre is like crabbing blindfolded as you are constantly enraptured by early oceanographer's explorations, the beginnings of A.I. , the ancient game of Go and warnings of climate change. A wide range of characters, each with a unique voice, grace the pages with the main story being about two childhood friends who take different paths and an oceanographer who felt more at ease under the water than above it. They and others will meet again on a the little resilient island nation of Makatea who once again face foreigners trying to use the island to "make life better" only to see their way of life and island paradise stripped. The cover is stunning but not as much as the picture Richard Powers paints of the ocean and its inhabitants. It is a subtle call to activism, a love letter to oceans and to the people with the smallest voice who thrive within them. For anyone who lives for National Geographic documentaries, happily looks for life on every watery horizon and also enjoys a variety of well developed characters. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.