Playground

By Richard Powers,

Book cover of Playground

Book description

A magisterial new 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 new 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…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

5 authors picked Playground as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Another wonderful book from Powers about the environment and climate crisis.

Richard Powers follows up his brilliant book The Overstay with another compelling environmental novel that covers a range of important questions—from artificial intelligence to environmental justice to questions of indigenous rights and global equity. The characters are fascinating, the challenges beguiling, and the story of our global oceans is filled with wonder and threat.

The descriptions of the underwater diving scenes were so vivid I felt like I was there--without having to don a wetsuit or scuba gear.

A Diary in the Age of Water

By Nina Munteanu,

Book cover of A Diary in the Age of Water

Ad
Nina Munteanu Author Of A Diary in the Age of Water

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Writer Ecologist Mother Teacher Explorer

Nina's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

This climate fiction novel follows four generations of women and their battles against a global giant that controls and manipulates Earth’s water. Told mostly through a diary and drawing on scientific observation and personal reflection, Lynna’s story unfolds incrementally, like climate change itself. Her gritty memoir describes a near-future Toronto in the grips of severe water scarcity.

Single mother and limnologist Lynna witnesses disturbing events as she works for the powerful international utility CanadaCorp. Fearing for the welfare of her rebellious teenage daughter, Lynna sets in motion a series of events that tumble out of her control with calamitous consequence.…

A Diary in the Age of Water

By Nina Munteanu,

What is this book about?

Centuries from now, in a post-climate change dying boreal forest of what used to be northern Canada, Kyo, a young acolyte called to service in the Exodus, discovers a diary that may provide her with the answers to her yearning for Earth’s past—to the Age of Water, when the “Water Twins” destroyed humanity in hatred—events that have plagued her nightly in dreams. Looking for answers to this holocaust—and disturbed by her macabre longing for connection to the Water Twins—Kyo is led to the diary of a limnologist from the time just prior to the destruction. This gritty memoir describes a…


Richard Powers writes books that are both entertaining and important. He comes to bring us a sense of wonder. In Playground he does for oceans what he did for forests in The Overstory. He takes four disparate lives and tells their stories, which tie together in a breathtaking and perfectly timed dance of science, humanity and awe. He does what only the truest artists can do: he makes you see the world anew.

Although the opening sags a bit, the narrative soon lifts off and the story soars, a tale intertwining AI and the future of the world’s oceans. The novel is, by turns, playful and disquieting. It is also inventive, evocative, and forward-looking.

Want books like Playground?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Playground.

Browse books like Playground

Book cover of Ancillary Justice
Book cover of Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence
Book cover of How Long 'til Black Future Month?

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,510

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in artificial intelligence, the ocean, and presidential biography?

The Ocean 40 books