Playground

(Hardback, Large Print Edition)

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Finalist for the 2024 Kirkus Prize

Longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize

As Seen on CBS Saturday Morning Named a Best Book of 2024 So Far by The New Yorker and Vogue  Selected as "Fiction to Read this Fall" by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, People, and Parade  A Time, Vulture, Kirkus, and Goodreads Most Anticipated Book of Fall 2024 Named a Top Read of the Season by the AARP

A magisterial new novel from the Pulitzer Prizewinning and New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory and Bewilderment.

Four lives are drawn together in a sweeping, panoramic new novel from Richard Powers, showcasing the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the worlds first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keanes work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.

They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanitys next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the islands residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.

Set in the worlds largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.