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What to read this weekend: The history of overhyped tech, and a new graphic novel from Charles Burns
New releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our attention.
Richard Powers’ Playground is a novel of contrasts: the vast unknown of Earth’s oceans, a place of constant discovery and marvelous creatures that seem always to be at play, versus technological advancement and the rise of AI; the unlikely friendship between a young poet and a boy whose life revolves around coding; a remote island with a tiny population still feeling the effects of a history of exploitation, and the tech elites who envision it as the stepping stone to their own utopia. Through the perspectives of four characters who have been brought together on Makatea, an atoll in the South Pacific, Playground explores friendship, play, the wonders of the natural world and humanity in the age of artificial intelligence. Tech and science journalist Nicole Kobie takes us on a journey through the decades to trace the roots of some of the biggest ideas that never quite came to fruition in the way it was once projected they would — flying cars, the hyperloop, robots that can actually do all of our chores for us, etc.
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