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Playground

Richard Powers

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Playground

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Ocean-spanning literary puzzle of humanity and futures

If you like big, idea-rich novels that still feel intimate, this could really stay with you. Richard Powers blends friendship, AI, ecology, and empire into something sweeping but emotionally grounded, with Makatea giving the story a haunting, unforgettable center. It feels like the kind of book readers admire for being both intellectually daring and deeply human.

  • Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2024)
  • Audie Award Nominee for Audiobook of the Year (2025)
  • The Rooster -- The Morning News Tournament of Books Nominee for Longlist (2025)
  • Libby Award Nominee for Best Adult Fiction (2025)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

Playground

Regular price
Unit price
per
Condition guide
ISBN: 9781529154320
Author: Richard Powers
Date of Publication: 2024-09-26
Format: Paperback
Goodreads rating: 4.14
(rated by 47907 readers)

Description

Rafi and Todd are two polar opposites at an elite high school where they bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game. It sets them up for life: Rafi will get lost in literature, while Todd’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough. Elsewhere, 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 in naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. All of these people meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, marked for humanity’s next great adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out into the open sea. As the seasteaders close in, how will Evie play the ever-unfolding oceanic game? Will Ina engage in acts of destruction? Todd and Rafi, now estranged, still find themselves in competition: Todd unravels while working on an idea to redraw the boundaries of human immortality, while Rafi and the residents must decide if they will greenlight the new project on their shores and change their home forever. Set in the world’s largest ocean, Playground explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize and interweaves profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.
 

Ocean-spanning literary puzzle of humanity and futures

If you like big, idea-rich novels that still feel intimate, this could really stay with you. Richard Powers blends friendship, AI, ecology, and empire into something sweeping but emotionally grounded, with Makatea giving the story a haunting, unforgettable center. It feels like the kind of book readers admire for being both intellectually daring and deeply human.

  • Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2024)
  • Audie Award Nominee for Audiobook of the Year (2025)
  • The Rooster -- The Morning News Tournament of Books Nominee for Longlist (2025)
  • Libby Award Nominee for Best Adult Fiction (2025)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

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