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Richard Powers, author of Playground

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 3,000-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.

Week of September 29, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of September 29th include REVENGE OF THE TIPPING POINT, a brand-new volume from Malcolm Gladwell that reframes the lessons of his groundbreaking first book, THE TIPPING POINT, in a startling and revealing light; PLAYGROUND by Richard Powers, a sweeping, panoramic novel set in the world’s largest ocean where four lives are drawn together; Paula Hawkins' THE BLUE HOUR, a masterful work of fiction that is as page-turning as it is unsettling and recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith; THE SEQUEL, the eagerly awaited follow-up to THE PLOT, in which Jean Hanff Korelitz gives readers an antihero to root for while illuminating and satirizing the world of publishing; and FIRE AND BONES by Kathy Reichs, a twisty, unputdownable thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who finds herself at the center of an arson investigation that spawns deepening levels of mystery and, ultimately, violence.