Canadian wildfire smoke covers Minnesota, alert issued until noon Wednesday

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

In his 2019 Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, “

,” Richard Powers imagines a world where only a few acres of virgin forest remain on the continent. A group of strangers band together to protect those few remaining trees, and in the process, discover the trees are communicating with each other. 

,” turns the same eye to the planet’s oceans. As he tells Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, his hope is that the power of storytelling will animate humans to behold the sea with fresh wonder — and act to preserve it before it’s too late. 

“These last three novels of mine are attempts to find ways of telling stories that challenge that separateness or sense of entitlement,” he says, “that sense that we are the essential and perhaps the only interesting game in town and that everything else is a resource for our project.”

Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller on 

for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Host

Author

In his new novel, “Playground,” Richard Powers explores the majesty, the mystery and the fragile future of the planet’s seas.

In his new novel, “Playground,” Richard Powers explores the majesty, the mystery, and the fragile future of the planet’s seas.

Richard Powers brings to life the death of the world’s oceans in ‘Playground’

Go Deeper.

Like this?