The Book Report: Washington Post critic Ron Charles (October 13) [Video]

By Washington Post book critic Ron Charles

Here are four great new books to sink into this fall. 

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Powers is back with “Playground” (W.W. Norton­), a brilliant new novel about artificial intelligence and the race to save the oceans.

The story moves along three tracks: There’s a computer genius looking back at his life; an oceanographer recounting her love for sea creatures; and a small group of people on a tiny island in the South Pacific who’ve been offered a fortune by a shadowy group of tech billionaires.

How Powers manages to draw these three stories together will change the way you see the world. 

Read an excerpt: “Playground” by Richard Powers

“Playground” by Richard Powers (W.W. Norton­), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org

Richard Powers (Official site)

“Creation Lake”by Rachel Kushner (Scribner) looks like a spy thriller, but it’s even trickier than that. The narrator is a freelance agent …