Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme started by @Lauren’s Page Turners but is currently hosted by Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog. This meme is quite easy to follow – just randomly pick a book from your to-be-read list and explain why you want to read it. It is that simple.

This week’s book:

Playground by Richard Powers

Blurb from Goodreads

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 in 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 feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next 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.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday everyone! It is the start of a new work week! I know, no one is looking forward to Monday; it is nearly everyone’s least favorite day of the week. I am also part of that “everyone.” How I wish the weekends were longer. I am still suffering some post-concert depression (PCD) after I attended my first 7Dream concert. It was loud but it was fun. It was even more fun because 7Dream was just enjoying performing on the stage. It was such a delight to witness. Anyway, I hope everyone started the workweek on a high note. Woah. We are nearly midway through the month. It seems just like yesterday when we welcomed August. Regardless, I hope that the remainder of the year will shower all of us with blessings, positive energy, and good news. More importantly, I hope everyone will be healthy, in mind, body, and spirit.

As has been customary, I am commencing another blogging week with a fresh Goodreads Monday update. Just yesterday, I concluded my foray into European literature; I spent the last three months and the first week of August reading exclusively works of European literature. Following this long but memorable journey, I have started reading books published in the past two years which I have been looking forward to. This was after considering reading works of Asian literature. Anyway, I am currently reading James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. While it fell off my radar when I was searching for books to include in my 2023 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To list, its being cited as one of the best books of 2023 made me add it to my own reading list.

Anyway, this week’s featured book is Richard Powers’ latest novel, Playground. The American writer first piqued my interest with his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Overstory. My interest in his oeuvre was further piqued when his 2021 novel Bewilderment was announced as part of the Booker Prize longlist; it would be shortlisted for the prestigious literary prize but fell short as Damon Galgut’s The Promise that was announced the winner. Interestingly, I was not aware that Powers was releasing a new work this year. Had it not been for the Booker Prize, I would have not heard of Playground. At the back of my previous experience with his works and the book’s longlisting for the 2024 Booker Prize, it did not take much to convince me to add

Playground, it seems, was built on the same mantel upon which both The Overstory and Bewilderment were crafted. The two books explored seminal themes relating to the environment. They were essentially about environmental activism. Playground does seem to highlight the same subjects but with an emphasis on the creatures of the deep unlike the two other novels which were primarily set on land and dealt with land-related environmental crises. Anyway, I am looking forward to Playground and I hope I get to obtain a copy of the book as soon as it is released on September 24. How about you fellow reader? How was your Monday? What books have you added to your reading list? Do drop it in the comment box. For now, happy Monday and, as always, happy reading!