Sunday Salon -- A few favorite things this week

Valentine's Day love: My cousin's daughter and her son joined us for a heartfelt dinner last night with the whole family. The photo above is of the three "cousins" preparing to eat their heart-shaped pizza.

Weather: Rain. We had fourteen days of very cold weather, where is snowed nearly every day. Very unusual for our PNW climes. But now we are back to a regular winter weather pattern of rain in the lowlands and snow in the mountains.

Our daughter's family with Mushu.

Tiana's Bayou Ride (Splash Mountain)

Close up of Jamie, who DID NOT want to go back on this ride again.

Disneyland funny: My daughter and her family recently made a trip to Disneyland. Before the trip, our grandson, age four, was eating his food diligently so he would grow tall enough to make the height requirement of 42 inches tall. He just made it, but according to this photo I am not sure he enjoyed it very much. I laugh everytime I think of this photo and the look on his little face. Fortunately, he had many happier moments like the one about with Mushu.

 

2024 Cybils Award book announced: I took a year off from judging for the Cybils Awards. The winners of this book bloggers award were announced on Valentine's Day. Check out all the winners here.

This Instagram announcement from Barbara Kingsolver about a project that happened because of Demon Copperhead: Here is the link. I hope it opens. If not, I snipped the photo (above). Get out your magnifying glass. She has opened the higher Ground Women's Recovery Residence with the proceeds to the book. If you didn't read this book, Demon Copperhead's mom died due to her drug addiction and he became an orphan. Here is the rest of the post I had to cut off in the photo:

If you bought and read Demon Copperhead, you’ve already contributed to our project. And you understand that for all the real kids like Demon, a little support can make the difference between salvation or being orphaned. If you’d like to do more, please explore this website - hgwrr.org - to learn how you can help more families find higher ground.

Books and blogging the past two weeks:

• Completed:
• Sunshine: A Graphic novel by Jarrett Krosoczka--a heart-warming graphic memoir about Jarrett's experiences in high school as counselor for Cancer Camp.
• The Ministry of Time by Kalianne Bradley -- a mixture of time-travel and spy novel. Audiobook shared with Don.
• Just Kids by Patti Smith --the amazing memoir about Patti's life in the 1960s and 70s and her relationship with another artist, Robert Mapplethorpe. They rubbed elbows with so many artists and musicians. Many we've heard of, like Bob Dylan, and Todd Rundgren.
• The Most by Jessica Anthony -- a novella about an unhappy marriage and unhappy lives. It was like looking at the details under a microscope.

• Currently reading:
• The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth  McKenzie -- a quirky cast of characters, mostly lovable but also somewhat irritating. Audio. 30%.
• This Motherless Land by Nikki May -- a retelling of the Mansfield Park story set both in Nigeria and in the UK. Audio with Don. 30%.
• Lisette's List by Susan Vreeland -- A WWII story which also involves involves the art and artists: Chagall, Cezanne, and Pissarro. Print. 54%.
• What Kind of Woman: Poems by Kate Baer -- by a poet I've recently discovered. Print. 71%

• Up next (or at least the books I currently have checked out from the library, whether I get to them remains to be seen):
• Let's Call Her Barbie by Renee Rosen (Print / Fiction)
• Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (Print/ Fiction MG)
• White Cat, Black Dog: Stories by Kelly Link (Print/ Short Stories)
• Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks (Audio/Memoir)
• Brownstone by Samuel Teer (Print / Graphic novel/YA)
• The Wedding People by Espach (Print/Fiction/Book club selection. I need to move this one up the list)
• Blog posts
• Review: The God of the Woods
• TTT: Books published in 2024 I still want to read
• Review: Where I compare Sense and Sensibility to the Beatles
• Review: Sunshine: a Graphic Novel
• TTT: Book Titles that Work as Candy Hearts
• Classics Club: Spin #40 announcement and list (Book # will be announced later today!)
• Review: The Ministry of Time

Tennessee kid, Tristan, gives weather report, where there will be 4-6-8-10 inches of snow today. I love precocious kids. (Thanks, Kathy, for sharing this!)

Happy Valentine's Day, from my house to yours!

-Anne

Review: THE MINISTRY OF TIME (+Friday56 LinkUp)

Title: The Ministry of Time by Kalianne Bradley

Book Beginnings quote:

 Perhaps he'll die this time.

Friday56 quote:

He came through the front door while I was gazing blankly at the kettle.

    "Good morning."

    "Morning. Have you been out for a walk?"

    "No. To church."

    I felt strangely embarrassed, as if he had just told me that he spent his Sunday mornings at a soft play center.

    He smiled at me and said, "I have noted the dreadful secularism of this age. You may assume a less guilty expression."

Summary:

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future. (Publisher)

Review: The Ministry of Time was one of Barack Obama's favorite reads of this past summer, making his end-of-season list. I was aware of it before that time since so many bloggers were chattering about it but I decided to read it after seeing it on his list. It has been described as a "A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all." It is a new take on time travel, that is for sure, since the ministry goes back in time and snags people on the cusp of their death (plague, freezing in the Arctic, war) and brings them without consent into the present. Later the reader finds out the same thing is happening from the future. But that gets really mind-blowingly confusing so forget I said anything about it. The spy thriller bits were my favorite but the action and excitement were usually not sustained for very long and were fairly brief. The budding romance was a little nuanced at first and then quite steamy. Could the book have survived without them? I think yes, but it did add an interesting plot wrinkle.

After I completed the audiobook version of The Ministry of Time, I learned of the controversy surrounding the book. According to A.I. (oh no, not AI!) there is/was a Spanish TV series called "El Ministerio del Tiempo" which translates to, you guessed it, "The Ministry of Time." Both the book and the Spanish series feature a government agency that takes people from different historical periods to become time travelers. And they both address how these travelers could/do mess up timelines. Claims of plagiarism really heated up when the BBC decided to make a series based on the book, using the same title as the book and the translated title from the Spanish series. I have no idea what will happen with this.

My husband and I listened to the book together and both of us found it fairly compelling, asking us to think about the ethics of time travel, as if it could really happen. The Friday56 quote brings to mind another issue. As our society has evolved, some of our habits and practices really are dreadful, like Commander Gore pointed out when his bridge acts shocked that he went to church.

My rating: 4 stars. 

  

Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader (If you want to improvise, go ahead!)

*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!

*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it! 

*Visit other blogs and leave comments about their snippets. Expand the community. Please leave a comment for me, too!  

Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Classics Club, Spin #40

It’s time for another Classics Club spin.

This is the Classics Club’s 40th CC Spin…I wonder how many I have participated in. At least 2/3rd maybe even more, I'd guess.

What is a CC Spin?

• Simply pick twenty books that you’ve got left to read from a list of 20 classic book titles you'd still like to read.
• Post that list, numbered 1-20, on your blog before Sunday, 16th February.
• A number from 1-20 will be announced. 
• Read that book by 11th April.

Here is my list of  Twenty Classics for Spin #40-- Winter 2025

1. Something by Dickens
2. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
3. The Tenet of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
4. Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams by Sylvia Plath*
5. The Magnificent Ambersons by Tarkington
6. Hamlet by Shakespeare
7. All the King’s Men by Warren
8. The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky*
9. Now In November by Johnson
10. The Reivers by William Faulkner
11.  Excellent Women by Pym
12. Something by Shakespeare
13. Some book that won the Pulitzer Prize (over 50 years ago)
14.  Candide by Voltaire
15. Something by Ray Bradbury
16. David Copperfield by Dickens*
17. Grimm’s Fairy Tales*
18. The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne
19. Silas Marner by Eliot*
20. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle*

*Books I own. I'M HOPING TO FINALLY GET THEM READ AND OFF MY LIST!

And the winning number is...

4

So I will see if I can find on my e-reader: Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams by Sylvia Plath. A collection of short stories and essays.

-Anne

TTT: Book Titles That Work On Candy Hearts

Top Ten Tuesday: Valentine's Day Freebie -- Book Titles That Work on Candy Hearts

(This is a repeat of a post done four years ago, let's see if I can come up with some other clever titles to scrunch onto a candy heart. I've read and recommend all of these books. No duplicates from first list, either.)

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

Suddenly We: Poems by Evie Shockley

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Sunshine: A Graphic Novel by Jarrett Krosoczka

The Moon Tonight Jung Chang-hoon

The Kissing of Kissing: Poems by Hannah Emerson

So Lucky by Nicola Griffith

Sweet Thunder Ivan Doig

Trust by Hernan Diaz

Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Please, Baby, Please by Spike Lee

A Few Beautiful Minutes by Kate Fox

Plant a Kiss by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Dearly: Poems by Margaret Atwood

That was fun! How'd I do?

                                                                               -Anne

Graphic Novel Review: SUNSHINE

Title: Sunshine: A Graphic Novel by Jarrett Krosoczka

Book Beginnings page:

First bubble: "I was sixteen when I first worked at a camp for kids with life-threatening illnesses. It forever changed the trajectory of my life."
Second bubble: "Just about everyone who asks about the experience seems to have the same knee-jerk reaction: It must have been so sad."

Page 58:

First bubble (Camp director): "Okay, everyone, I hope that everybody is ready for a fantastic day at camp. I'm going to ask counselors to head to their stations."
Second bubble (Camp director): "Parents, after you've dropped of your kids at their designated spot, we're all going to meet up by the lake for some team-building activities."
Third bubble (Jarrett): "I watched as my friends all joined their groups. I have to be honest. I had been looking forward to working with littler kids, so being assigned to a teen was at first a little disappointing."

Summary: Jarrett Krosoczka, a graphic artist I met in his first memoir, Hey Kiddo, which is about being raised by his grandparents since his mother abandoned him to drugs and he never knew his father, continues his story about his experiences at Camp Sunshine. He is assigned to be a one-on-one counselor to a teenager with a brain tumor who doesn't want to be at camp. But along the way Jarrett and that boy become friends and have fun doing some really surprising activities. Jarrett also bonds with other campers and his fellow counselors who all admit that the experience was life-changing. 

Review: I have some friends, who are my age, that volunteer at Sister Pat's Cancer/Kid's Camp every year in New Jersey. C., a cancer survivor,  and her husband, K., wanted to give something back to the cancer-care community the first year, and now go back every year because they are hooked. I bet they'd agree with Jarrett that the camp experience has changed the trajectory of their lives.

When Jarrett Krosoczka was selected as a counselor for Camp Sunshine he was fairly judgmental of the other student counselors in his group. But as the week went by, these teens also bonded through their shared experiences, creating lifelong friendships. Near the end of the week together one of their teacher advisors talks about how the math of it all doesn't add up:

First bubble (female advisor, note the cigarette): "Oh can it, Mr. Granier, once you experience this kind of work, you never look at life the same way again. There isn't a place more beautiful than these grounds. And the feeling you get by helping these families."
Second bubble (continuation): "The funny thing about being in service to others is that the math of it all doesn't add up. No matter how much work and energy you put into these weeks, you get back way more than you ever put in."

I know that feeling. Sometimes one thinks they are helping others when really they are helping you. 

I really loved this book but I think you should read Hey, Kiddo first. You will meet Jarrett in that book and understand what a hard life he has lived, making this book all the sweeter.

Rating: 5 stars.

-Anne

Review: THE GOD OF THE WOODS (+Friday56 LinkUp)

Title: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

Book Beginnings quote:

"The bed is empty."

Friday56 quote:

“It was wonderful, thought Tracy, having friends like these, who seemed to see the parts of yourself you worked hardest to hide, and bring them into the light and celebrate them with a sort of tender ribbing that uplifted more than it put down.”

Summary: 

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances.

Review: I listened to the audiobook of The God of the Woods by Liz Moore last month. All 14 hours and 35 minutes of it. The story is a double murder mystery with the suspected murders happening fourteen years apart. Like all mysteries I have a hard time reviewing them because the point of the book is to discover who-dunnit and if I tell you, then there is no point in you reading it. Instead, I will give you a few of my thoughts of the book.

1. The mystery begins with the first line, "The bed was empty."
2. Th Friday56 quote is about Tracy, a young camper, who finally feels accepted after years of being an outsider. Acceptance is a powerful motivator for staying silent when one should speak up.
3. There are a lot of suspects. In fact, I'd say that everyone is a suspect with the exception of the police and the children campers.
4. For that reason there are a lot of people to keep track of and details presented early on in the story have to be remembered to fill in gaps closer to the end. Don and I listened to it together so we had the benefit of stopping the audiobook to remind the other person of earlier details or even to discuss who so&so was.
5. There were so many red herrings. I swear I actually thought at least a half dozen of the people were the murderers at one point or another during the story.
6. Oddly for a book so crammed with characters, I didn't really like anyone and some of the characters I actually hated. Maybe the one exception was the police inspector, Judy, and possibly the camp counselor Louise. Otherwise, blech, those rich people were all awful, AWFUL.
7. The book was long, 490 pages, and there were more than one part where the action dragged and I thought "get on with it."
8. The story unfolded in two timelines, one for the first murder investigation and another for the second. Fortunately there was timeline help in the headings of the chapters, so I was rarely confused.

The God of the Woods ended up on a lot of the end-of-the-year favorite book lists for 2024. Many citing how thrilling the plot and how unputdownable to book is. I rated the book with 4 stars, losing one star for its length and all the awful, despicable characters.

Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader (If you want to improvise, go ahead!)

*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!

*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it! 

*Visit other blogs and leave comments about their snippets. Expand the community. Please leave a comment for me, too!  

Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

TTT: Books published in 2024 I still hope to read

Top Ten Tuesday: Books published in 2024 I still hope to read.

Looking over this list of the 50 Best Books of 2024 I see there are still several titles I want/need to read.

1. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

2. The Wedding People by Alison Esbach

3. Small Rain by Garth Greenwell

4. The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

5. Be Ready When the Luck Happens: a Memoir by Ina Garten

6. The City and Its Uncertain Wall by Haruki Murakami

7. Colored Television by Danzy Sella

8.  Long Island by Colm Tóibín

9. Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez

10. Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

-Anne

Review: SENSE AND SENSIBILITY -- Where I address the similarities between Jane Austen and The Beatles

As part of the Austen25 Project I am reading some/all of Jane Austen's novels this year in celebration of what will be her 250th birthday. The project suggests reading her books in publication order, so began with Sense and Sensibility. 

In mid-January I set up a plan to read the novel in an orderly way so I would complete it by month's end. (See plan here.) I blew right past my plan and finished the novel well ahead of schedule and have since sat on this review.

What can I say about Jane Austen and about her first published novel that hasn't already been said? Why am I compelled to read Jane Austen novels over and over again? Are there other authors, groups, or events which I feel similarly compelled to read/attend/listen to/watch like I do with Jane Austen? 

These thoughts rattled around in my brain for the few weeks it took me to read Sense and Sensibility. During that same time, I checked out yet another book about The Beatles from the public library and consumed it in less than a day. The two aren't connected, are they? Jane Austen and The Beatles? An unlikely but definite connection between the two started to coalesce in my brain.

What do Jane Austen and The Beatles have to do with each other? I turn to both of them for comfort.

Back in 2016, when Trump won his first election I found myself in a true funk. I could barely function yet I found true comfort in watching, and rewatching the old Jane Austen movies I own on DVD. It was as if I was too fragile emotionally to watch modern TV shows or movies, but movies set in the 1800s were fine. There is also something so comforting in Jane Austen books/movies about how things always seem to work out in the end. In Sense and Sensibility not only does Marianne get over her deadly fever but she finds solace and comfort in her friendship and eventual love for Col. Brandon. Elinor is resigned that her life will go on without Edward Ferrars -- at least she has her sisters-- when all the sudden he pops up, clears up all the confusion. and declares his love. Something very similar happens in all six of J.A.'s novels. In Mansfield Park, for example Austen says, "I only entreat everybody to believe that exactly at the time when it was natural that is should be so, and not a week earlier, Edmund did cease to care for Miss Crawford, and became as anxious to marry Fannie..." It reminds me of the phrase, "Everything will be okay in the end. If it is not okay, it's not the end." I needed to remind myself that everything would be okay in the end and found that message in J.A. novels.

Right after I recovered enough from my post-election funk to be able to stop watching the steady stream of Jane Austen films, I started a two-year oddly timed fascination with the Beatles. I'd always loved the Fab Four but this was something new. I was fully involved in a personal Beatlemania in 2017 and most of 2018. I read many, many books about the group, listened to their songs incessantly, and made several posting about my obsession. (See Beatlemania, Beatlemania Part 2, Sgt. Pepper at 50, Dreaming the Beatles, Tell Me Why, Beatlemania Part Three, and a ton of references made by me about the Beatles in my Sunday Salon Posts. Reflecting back on this time period, smack in the middle of the first Trump term, I wanted to be transported back to a happier more innocent time for me. Listening to Beatles music caused me to recall happy memories from my childhood. While listening to the Beatles I could disappear from the cares of the current time for a short while. 

Rerun 2024/25. Trump wins again. I'm off TV, especially any kind of political news. Once again I find comfort in Austen books (starting with Sense and Sensibility this past month) and films (I rewatched the Emma Thompson version of S&S last week.) Also the urge to learn more about the Beatles returns. I watched a documentary about the Beatles in America and read a book about the same topic, both in January. 

Like drinking a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows on a cold day, I draw comfort from both Jane Austen books/movies and Beatles songs. It may not be the most proactive thing I can do for self care but it works.

Not exactly a review of a favorite novel, but it's what I got for you today.

-Anne

Sunday Salon -- Feb. 2, 2025

Weather: It snowed this morning,  big fluffy flakes. Now it is overcast and threatening to rain. The weather report predicts a few days of the same weather pattern. We'll see.

Photo collages of what I've been up to (or plan to be up to...):

Don and I took our youngest grandson to Paradise in Mt. Rainier National Park for a day of snow fun. Jamie did his darndest to make a snow angel but the snow was hard-packed and by mid day we had stripped off most of our clothes, the temperature was 65 degrees Fahrenheit with all the radiant heat. It was a gorgeous and spectacular setting.

Books completed the last two weeks. Reviews: The Mighty Red; The Optimist's Daughter; Playground

Currently reading: 23% ,    10% (audio) ;       25% (Graphic memoir);        25% (audio)                                                                                                               

Up next: Part of a library book haul.

Both of my book clubs met last week. We discussed James in the RHS Ladies Club; and The Red Address Book in the SOTH Gals Club.

Top Ten Tuesday topics you may have missed:
1. Books I Was Reading the Last Week of January for the Past Ten Years
2. Most Recent Additions to My TBR List

Our dog, Mr. Charles Bingley, has finally figured out how to jump up on the couch. He's so proud of himself. Ha!

Happy week!

-Anne

Review: PLAYGROUND: A NOVEL

I just finished reading Playground by Richard Powers. The book is both brilliant and perplexing at the same time. I've reread the ending three times and I still don't think I know what happened. I;ve even visited a few websites which say they will explain the conclusion but after reading what they wrote I still don't "get it." so, with that in mind, I've decided to give this review over to others (you know, the more qualified folks than me) to tell you what is so wonderful and mystifying about Playground.

First a summary --

Playground is a least partially set on a tiny island, Makatea, part of French Polynesia, in the South Pacific. The island was once ravaged for its abundant stores of phosphate causing great environmental degradation. Now only a handful of people still reside on the island, many barely surviving on the limited resources. When a California-based company expresses interest in creating a seasteading community off their coast, the citizens are rightly skeptical that all the promised infrastructure will end up degrading the environment of their island and reef even further. 

The story revolves around the stories of three characters: Todd Keane, Rafi Young, and Evelyne Beaulieu. Evelyne, who is 90 by the end of the story, falls in love with deep-sea diving at a very young age. She becomes a marine biologist who is dedicated to studying life in the oceans. Over her long life she has witnessed the effects that climate change has had on sea life and she is very worried about the future.

Todd and Rafi meet in high school and become friends over their love of games -- first chess and later GO. Both boys are brilliant. They room together in college where Todd studies computing and code-writing eventually developing the very popular online game, Playground. Rafi gets his degree in the humanities with a focus on literature and poetry. The boys, now men, still enjoy playing Go together and bouncing ideas of each other. When Rafi meets a girl who is a talented artist, he knows he wants to marry her someday. As Rafi and Ina get closer to each other they get further away from Todd. Eventually the friends split up due to clashes over their differing worldviews. 

Todd's "Playground" becomes wildly popular and he makes a lot of money. Later he works on cutting-edge technology related to AI. When Todd is 57, however, he is diagnosed with Lewy-body dementia. He learns that the disease is progressive and he will eventually lose all memory and ability to care for himself. At this point he decides to write down his story and create what he hopes will be his legacy. The narrator in the portion of the book whose text is italicized is Todd's story.

Or is it?

Now let's see what I can figure out from other reviewers --

First from the New York Times, this headline about the author Richard Powers with a reference to his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Overstory and trees:

The reviewer talks a lot about Powers' brilliance at writing about environmental topics but it also gives more details about the plot. However this is all that is said about the confusing conclusion:

Powers, who published early on artificial intelligence with “Galatea 2.2” (1995) reintroduces it here with an all-knowing tool, a collaborative “nanny app” called Profunda, which ostensibly will help the skeptical islanders. And the late twist this device enables, whorled as a seashell, may leave even the highest VO2 max reader gasping a little for air.

Clearly the reviewer doesn't want to give away any spoilers but this paragraph is about as clear as mud and didn't enlighten me at all.

I like this review by Y. Dawoor in  The Guardian better. I especially like this description of the book:

AI thriller is for sure and one hardly sees it coming. At least this time the reviewer acknowledges that the conclusion has a plot twist, but doesn't want to spoil things for you, the potential reader:

The novel’s most disquieting inquiries are concerned with AI and its fast-evolving capabilities. Will it lead to human extinction? What leverage will it give to good and evil? Could it resurrect the dead? Is it the future of storytelling?...That Powers is an outstanding writer is hardly news. But with Playground, he proves himself a wizard. This novel is one long, clever magic trick. You approach the end thinking you have everything figured out. But then the author does something quite extraordinary – a move it would be criminal of me to give away. Let’s just say the reader is left reeling as the book’s conceit is revealed and the novel ascends to the plane of true, indisputable greatness.

My favorite parts of the story were the scenes described by Evelyne of what she witnessed during her many dives. Dawoor agrees with me, saying, "Some of the underwater scenes are so limpid and sensorially rich, it’s like watching an oceanic feature in Imax; throughout, there’s a quasi-spiritual appreciation for the wonders and mysteries of marine life."

A theme of the value of "play" is apparent throughout the book. Todd and Rafi play chess and Go. Todd makes a killing on his online game "Playground". Even sea creatures like to play, as Helen McAlpin highlights in her review for NPR:

"If you want to make something smarter, teach it to play," remarks a trailblazing oceanographer in Richard Powers' Playground. Evelyne Beaulieu is one of several brilliant characters in the novel who eagerly approach their work every day with the excitement of "a babe in Toyland." During decades exploring the ocean floor and playing "hide-and-seek with octopuses and tag with pygmy seahorses," the Montreal-born diver feels as if she's been "set loose in the greatest playground any child had ever seen." But she is also concerned by the changes she's witnessed over the years — including reefs and species that have been decimated.

McAlpin concludes her review by stating that Powers does a masterful job weaving the three strands of the stories together but "still, he manages to pull off a sly — and disturbing — twist in the novel's profoundly affecting climax."

I give up. No one is going to explain the conclusion to me and I'm not going to spoil the ending for you by discussing my theories. Guess you'll have to read the book and find out for yourself! Let me know what you think if you do read it.

-Anne