January 2025: Playground by Richard Powers
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 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.
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Suggested Indie Bookstores:
Burke’s Book Store (Memphis, TN)
Novel (Memphis, TN)
Parnassus Books (Nashville, TN)
Landmark Booksellers (Franklin, TN)
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Favorite Quotes:
“Aristotle said that happiness is the settling of the soul into its most appropriate spot. I doubled down on my belief that computer scientists should never dabble in philosophy. What does that mean, exactly? What makes you happy, Todd Keane? What’s your work? How do you define a day well spent?“
“At times she treaded in place, swarmed by the wildest assortment of Dr. Seuss creations—indigo, orange, silver, every color in the spectrum from piebald nudibranchs to bright, bone-white snails sporting forests of spines. The sea buoyed her, like warm silk on her bare arms and legs. She hung suspended in the middle of reefs that mounded up in pinnacles, domes, turrets, and terraces. She was a powerless angel hovering above a metropolis built by billions of architects almost too close to see. At night, with underwater lights, when the coral polyps came out to feed, the reef boiled over with surreal purpose, a billion different psychedelic missions, all dependent on each other.”
“Rafi knew better than to ask how she recognized perfect. He didn’t need to know. Never again in life would he let perfect be the enemy of good. He had lived that way once, and it almost cost him everything. Combing the rocks now, he stashed away each bit of trash he came across, even the soft, crinkly, pathetic little half serving water bottle no bigger than his first. He’d found her again, here, after having lost her forever, found that pair of magic small beings he could see down the shore in front of him. He would never want or need anything more perfect than this.”
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Other Stuff I’m Into Right Now:
California
Chartreuse (and the fact that monks make it)
Cheesecake
Goodfellas
Giant sweatshirts I bought from coffee shops, gift shops, etc. while traveling
Coach purses
