PLAYGROUND
Richard Powers
Although Richard Powers’ PLAYGROUND is not published in the US yet, it has been longlisted for THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024. It is due to be released on September 24, 2024. The themes in this book are indicative of and like many other titles on the list.
If all the books have a similar theme it is SYMBIOSIS.
But I’m getting ahead of myself and we’re only talking about PLAYGROUND here today. So let’s take a step back and talk about it.
My first experience with Richard Powers didn’t go over well. I DNF’d OVERSTORY and although it was an Oprah Book Club choice, I decided it wasn’t for me. Then I read BEWILDERMENT and was blown away. Powers’ connection to language and to the Earth is extraordinary. And to be a part of it as a reader is a wonderful experience.
PLAYGROUND features characters, but it is more about how we interact with our environment and secondly how we interact with each other. One prominent storyline features a curious young boy who grows into a successful businessman. To have that success he essentially must unbecome a lot of who he is. The two identities cannot exist in the same body.
Is there a version of you that you need to let go of to allow a new rendition to come in?
PLAYGROUND is about symbiosis. How when two things come together a new thing is born. There is no end of us and a beginning to the universe. We extend beyond our human form and part of our expression as humans is how we treat this part of us that is the universe.
You are not a human in the universe. You are the universe.
It is a lot about how we interact with our environment. It’s also about the lasting changes we make to our environment. How all of us who inhabit the EARTH change it for the worse.
In some ways Powers is a literary boy scout. Who wants us to leave this Earth better than we found it. It is in our nature to have dominion over all. To do that we must first have dominion over ourselves.
And every single choice we make as we make it through our days and nights makes a difference. Sam recycling in New York, helps the fish in the deep blue sea in California. Every time we litter or drive our cars, or water our yards unnecessarily, we take. From the forests to the oceans and everything in and between continents.
If you want a flavor of all the books, PLAYGROUND is the one I recommend. An easy Five Stars.
*Full-cast narration
Thanks to W.W. Norton, Netgalley and Spotify Audiobooks for the advanced copies!
PLAYGROUND… ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
SKY FULL OF ELEPHANTS
Cebo Campbell
One day in the near future every white person walks into the water first feet deep, then knee-high, waist deep, shoulder high until their head goes underwater and they are no longer breathing. Not one, not a few, not a cult or colony, all of them. In this world, only the brown survive.
Charles is a free man, who once wasn’t. A black man convicted of a crime he says he didn’t commit. He works as a professor, living a life of servitude. One day his estranged daughter calls him out of the blue. She asks him a favor he has no will to decline. She received a letter from a pocket of surviving relatives, and she would like to go there to see them in the new state of Alabama.
Their relationship is complicated. She resembles him in the parts of herself she tries to deny. Meeting him is like being introduced to the other side of herself. Meeting her is confirmation that the life he traded in the name of others was more valuable than he realized and not his to give.
Traversing these new United States will take more than either of them have to give. For him, it will take an acknowledgment of things he keeps hidden. For her, it will require a new way of thinking about everything she has come to know about the world, her father, and herself.
Things about this story connect to me on a deep level. Sharing all of that is a little more than I’m willing to give. Suffice it to say this story touched me. The parts of myself that are soft and vulnerable, the parts I don’t talk about—the parts I don’t share.
There are questions raised within the text that need to be asked. That we need to answer. There is a world out there calling our names and we need to f*cking remember who we are.
“Let them inherit the earth by inheriting themselves.”
Thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for putting this on my radar and for the complimentary arc in exchange for a review!
SKY FULL OF ELEPHANTS…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
If you liked this review…you might like:
No Road Home by John Fram
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LIKE MOTHER, LIKE MOTHER
Susan Rieger
This is my first time reading Rieger. I enjoyed my time reading LIKE MOTHER, LIKE MOTHER. I found it to be both timely and prescient with us being on the dawn of this election season.
She being Grace, her being Lila, are daughter and mother.
There is no one she would rather be less like, and no one she resembles more. Their relationship is complicated. Full of disappointment and broken promises never given. Part of her is blood let to strangers that others interpret more as a willing donation.
There is a comfort in the river that runs between them. And loneliness resides in the current. Abandonment flows underneath. Constant and enduring.
She is reading the teleprompter and missing the message of the speech. The intention behind it, the driving force, is something she has never had the pleasure of knowing. For her, there is a lack of sincerity. A little bit of do as I say, not as I do. Her words do not match her walk; her heart ungiven. Because it was never hers to begin with.
I recommend this to those of you who found a home with the characters of SUCCESSION. It shows that women are as varied as their male counterparts. Men do not own the drive for success, and women have a place on boards other than the PTA. But nothing is without sacrifice.
The writing is smart, and the unflattering angles of Lila’s life are a reflection we can see ourselves in. Life is messy and we are intricate, delicate creatures. Splashing around in the mud and muck, trying to stay clean.
Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group – Random House | The Dial Press for the advanced copy!
LIKE MOTHER, LIKE MOTHER…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
If you liked this review…you might like:
Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight
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