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New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the 2024 Kirkus Prize Longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize As Seen on CBS Saturday Morning • A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • One of the Ten Best Books of the Year, according to the Washington Post and AARP • A Time Must-Read Book of the Year • An NPR "Books We Love" Pick • An Economist, New Yorker, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year "Prepare to be awed.… [A]stonishing." ―Ron Charles, Washington Post The magisterial novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory and Bewilderment.Four lives are drawn together in a sweeping, panoramic novel from Richard Powers, showcasing the Pulitzer Prize–winning 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 world’s 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 Keane’s 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 humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.Set in the world’s 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. Read more
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date : September 30, 2025
Language : English
Print length : 416 pages
ISBN-10 : 1324123737
ISBN-13 : 36
Item Weight : 12.2 ounces
Dimensions : 5.5 x 1 x 8.3 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #24,566 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #70 in Political Fiction (Books) #335 in Friendship Fiction (Books) #855 in Literary Fiction (Books)
#70 in Political Fiction (Books):
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Top Amazon Reviews
Format: Kindle
It starts with a friendship. Rafi is a young black boy, scarred by a family tragedy and growing up in poverty. Todd is a white rich kid with parents who ignore him. They meet at an exclusive academy, Todd through wealth and Rafi on a scholarship Todd's father created. The two boys find common ground in their love of games and the fact that they are the two brightest students at the academy. Soon they are best friends and tell each other the things they shared with no one else. Their friendship continues into college where a third person is added to their friendship. Ina grew up in the Polynesian islands, moving from naval base to naval base with her family. Both young men fall in love with her but she chooses Rafi. The friendship starts to diverge. Ina is an artist who makes huge sculptures. Rafi falls into literature trying to figure out the truths of the world. Todd takes another way, becoming engrossed in the rising computer industry and the birth of the Internet. After a huge fight in their senior year, the three fall apart. Meanwhile, Evie who is older than the three by a generation, lives for diving and exploring the sea. She was one of the earliest people to dive as her father created one of the first underwater breathing apparatuses. When grown, Evie marries and has children but the ocean is always her first love and fascination. She spends most of her time away from her family on diving trips to research the ocean, leaving the family responsibilities to her husband. Makatea is a small island in French Polynesia. Rai, Ina and Evie all end up there. The island had been gutted by phosphate farming years ago and is only now recovering. Now another American organization wants to develop Makatea and create self-contained floating cities that would be launched into the ocean. The island inhabitants will decide if this will happen. When Rafi discovers that Todd, who is now an Internet billionaire, is behind the plan, he leads the opposition. What will happen? Richard Powers is an American treasure. His interests lie in environmentalism and in technology. He uses this novel to bring the two together and question if technology could be the mechanism that can solve some of the environmental problems the world is facing. He has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for fiction and been longlisted four times for the Booker Prize. In this book, the reader learns about the wonder of the oceans and the creatures who inhabit it while also learning about the history of the small islands in Polynesia. The main characters are both hard to warm up to although Ina is a delight as is the Queen of the island who keeps the traditional songs and stories of the island alive. This book is recommended for literary fiction readers as well as those worried about the environment and those who love the oceans.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2026 by Sandra Iler Kirkland
Format: Kindle
"Playground" is a very interesting story. And it's a story that's compelling throughout, though the book is not of the caliber of Powers' masterpiece, "The Overstory." Most people will find the book very powerful, and I almost did. I liked the story and found the book quite readable. The book spoke to many things I care about. But there were a few aspects that I found just a little too off-putting. The Todd character is the primary one. He *is* a spoiled brat but at no point in the story did I find that brattiness charming or agreeable, which the author tried very hard to make happen. I just couldn't see how Ina and Rafi regarded him as such a great friend. I'm also always skeptical of stories where incredible computer software and capabilities just quickly materialize out of whole cloth masterminded by a single person the way they do in this book. It just doesn't work that way. I also didn't buy the allure of Keane's software playground. The whole thing seemed kind of boring to me; I don't think it would be the online mecca portrayed in the book. There are parts of the story that *are* beautiful. Evie's story is chief among them. You marvel at her fearlessness and are saddened by the lack of connection she has with her family. The island of Makatea and the people living there is another. Their stories are poignant and very compelling. Rafi, Ina, and their family is a third. You ache for their happiness. Finally, there is the beauty of the ocean which Powers describes so wonderfully. The story moves along very quickly. (Though I didn't like that Todd's story was printed all in italics.). "Playground" is definitely worth a read especially if you care about Earth's oceans. Recommended.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2025 by Kem White
Format: Hardcover
"I have a story to tell, the story of my friend and me and how we changed the future of mankind." [p. 137] "I asked you for a bedtime story, and you've conjured up a world so palpable that I mistake your characters for the people they once were." [p. 372] Who wrote this book? The author named on the cover and the copyright page is Richard Powers. But there is another author implied, and to grasp that is to make sense of some contradictions and chronological anomalies. There are two stories here. One has an omniscient narrator; the other is told by Todd Keane, a billionaire Facebook-like developer who is dictating his memoirs to an unnamed party as he faces his own decline from Lewy body dementia. Some of the same characters appear in both tales, but the one told by the omniscient narrator covers a broader scope. It is largely set on the French Polynesian island of Makatea, which relinquished its phosphate mining rights years ago to a company that left the island in tatters. Now, a new suitor has appeared -- a wealthy corporation that wants to use Makatea as a base for a "seasteading" operation, aiming to construct a floating city that will not need to answer much to any external political power. The 82 residents of Makatea must vote on whether to accept that proposal, which promises rebuilding and riches. Among Makatea's population are Rafi Young and Ina Aroita, who met as students at the University of Illinois. Rafi, a Black man, spent his childhood in a rough Chicago neighborhood; Ina, an artist, grew up in the South Pacific. They have adopted two orphaned children, and they seem to enjoy living away from the bustle of city life. Another island resident is Evelyne Beaulieu, a highly accomplished diver from Montreal, who once wrote a children's book extolling the wonders of the ocean. As a ten year-old, Todd Keane acquired Beaulieu's book, which he found enchanting. In times of stress, he imagined himself able to breathe under water, while walking from Illinois to Michigan via the bottom of the Great Lake. Todd came from a wealthy family in a North Shore suburb of Chicago. He was sent to an exclusive prep school, where he met Rafi, who was there by way of a scholarship endowed by Todd's father. Rafi was of a literary bent, in contrast to Todd's analytic mindset, but they bonded over chess, and -- later -- the ancient game of Go. The two of them ended up as roommates at the University of Illinois, where Todd had access to the university's powerful mainframe computer system, and Rafi studied literature. Eventually, Todd conceived the idea of an online platform that allowed participants to interact with one another; Rafi suggested that it could be improved by awarding points to players on the basis of their rated comments. The game, which came to be called Playground, evolved into a highly successful product that made Todd extremely rich. Rafi remained immersed in his literary endeavors, and the two eventually lost contact with each other, due in part to Todd's impulsive violation of Rafi's privacy concerning a tragic childhood episode. A review of _Playground_ doesn't really need to recapitulate the entirety of its (mainly complementary) stories. Powers produces many compelling, cinematic descriptions of underwater sea life, which may represent his attempt to convince readers that the deteriorating oceans are worth rescuing (i.e., an aquatic version of his earlier Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, _The Overstory_, which did the same for trees). His long-standing interest in computers is also prominent, nodding to current artificial intelligence projects such as ChatGPT, and sounding warnings about the future perils of AI. The book's final pages reconcile its two storylines, resolving a puzzle that must have been on the minds of readers up to that point. Powers' polymathic brilliance illuminates the entire work.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2024 by BluegrassPicker
Format: Paperback
Set in a fictional world where people have developed the ability to build floating cities and live on the ocean, this book centers around four characters and an island in French Polynesia. Apparently Timothée Chalamet has been optioned for the movie version, which is what got me interested (I’m a fan and assumed he wouldn’t consider it unless the book were really good). Takes place over several decades and deals with issues of technology, social media, and AI. Hard to describe but definitely worth reading.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2026 by Hans Hageman
This is Richard Powers's BEST book yet. It is like being Immersed in the world of marine life--astonishing in its complexity, words GLOWING in their beauty. I "oohed" and "ahhed" my way through reading this, wanting to share Pages and Pages with friends! I Highly recommend this. The three main characters are Alive to the reader; they change and grow in front of our eyes. Problems are laid out with ramifications not easily solved. True to life, messy and surprising, intense, sad, life captured , growing like coral--a GREAT BOOK. To Read this enlarges the mind's grasp of reality. And what an ENDING!! I won't give it away!
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Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2024 by Max Stockinger
Format: Kindle
This novel was especially disappointing because we know the author is capable of so much more. The story touches on the issues of AI and environmental crisis, but it doesn't say anything new. The plot is thin, almost non-existent. The characters are passive and one-dimensional. It reads like a short story with a lot of filler. The book reminds us that the impact of AI is uncertain, and that Nature is important. But it doesn't go deeper than that. And the story is the life history of several unconnected people. But it's all past tense. We are never in the moment with them when decisions are made, so there is no sense of drama or suspense or hope or pain. Instead, it's a mellow recounting of nostalgia and regret. On a positive note, there is some beauty, some poetic language, some thoughtful contemplation. But it ultimately felt like a long ride to nowhere.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2025 by RCKelly
Format: Hardcover
"Playground" is another brilliantly constructed novel by Richard Powers. I admire his intention to do for life in the ocean what he did for trees in "The Overstory." The other major element, however -- computers and artificial intelligence -- is where I have a big problem. To say more would give too much away, I will have to leave it at that, and you will have to read it and see what you think. Evelyne Beulieu, the Québécois diver, is a great character, and it is mainly through her that Powers conveys the wonder and beauty of the ocean. The manta rays! The cuttlefish! Several Pacific Island characters are compelling though less well developed. The intense friends Rafi Young and Todd Keane are strong, but seem a bit too much like symbols, one from the black working class South Side of Chicago, and one from the wealthy white North Shore suburbs. Here Powers draws on his own history, growing up in Evanston and going to the University of Illinois in Urbana. For me this is a fine but flawed novel. For me. It is masterfully constructed, but I did not find it to be as amazing or as great as "The Overstory."
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Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2025 by Autonomeus
Format: Kindle
Stunning anthology of life’s beautiful and poignant evolution enmeshed in the realities of yesterday, today and the future of man.
Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2026 by victoria mohr