Playground

Richard Powers' novel "Playground" is a New York Times bestseller, Pulitzer Prize-winning, and Booker-shortlisted. It follows the lives of Rafi and Todd, two polar opposites at an elite high school, who bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game. The story takes place on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, where seasteaders are planning to send floating, autonomous cities out into the open sea. The novel explores profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity. Powers is a master of taking important topics of our times and turning them into riveting and relevant books.

Format: Hardback
Length: 400 pages
Publication date: 26 September 2024
Publisher: Cornerstone

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 THE POWERFUL NEW NOVEL FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AND BOOKER-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF THE OVERSTORY AND BEWILDERMENT 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 PERCIVAL EVERETT An extraordinarily immersive journey through lives linked in mysterious ways - gripping, alarming, and uplifting EMMA DONOGHUE 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.

Weight: 614g
Dimension: 241 x 164 x 36 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781529154313