Richard Powers Boeken

In some respects, Richard Powers's The Time of Our Singing is just a big, absorbing drama about an American family, with the typical ingredients of an immigrant parent and some social obstacles--in this case, a biracial marriage in the Civil Rights era--to be overcome by the talented children. But Powers's lyrical gifts lift this material far above its familiar subject matter. His descriptions of music alone will transport the reader. The Strom family were raised with this common language: "Our parents' Crazed Quotations game played on the notion that every moment's tune had all history's music box for its counterpoint. On any evening in Hamilton Heights, we could jump from organum to atonality without any hint of all the centuries that had died fiery deaths between them." The central figure of this novel is the dazzling Jonah, who makes a life from singing, and who may be the only person around him who regards his racial heritage as irrelevant to his ambitions. Powers's is such a fertile writer, however, that he can't stay with any single story, but plunges into pages and pages of family and social histories. The result is a rambling, resonant, fearless novel that pulls the reader along in its wake. --Regina Marler

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024, the book explores profound themes of identity and belonging through the lives of its richly developed characters. Set against a backdrop of societal change, it delves into their personal struggles and triumphs, weaving a narrative that challenges conventional perspectives. The author’s evocative prose and intricate storytelling invite readers to reflect on the complexities of human experience, making it a compelling addition to contemporary literature.

From the National Book Award-winning author of "The Echo Maker" comes a playful and provocative novel about the discovery of the happiness gene. Funny, fast, and finally magical, "Generosity" celebrates both science and the freed imagination.

Broschiertes Buch Nine strangers, each in different ways, become summoned by trees, brought together in a last stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest. THE OVERSTORY reveals a world alongside our own - vast, slow, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. An endlessly fascinating new novel from one of the greatest living American novelists.

An enthralling story about desire, new love and the mysteries of science from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Overstory Stuart Ressler, a brilliant biologist, sets out in 1957 to crack the genetic code. His efforts are sidetracked by other, more intractable codes - social, moral, musical, spiritual - and he falls in love with a member of his research team. Years later, another young man and woman team up to investigate a different mystery - why did the eminently promising Ressler suddenly disappear from the world of science? Strand by strand, these two love stories twist about each other in a double helix of desire. 'A love story of charm and substance, brimming over with ideas, yet anchored in emotional truth' Sunday Telegraph

Eddie Hobson is quickly succumbing to a mysterious illness, and his children draw on the World War II veteran's dictaphone-recorded construction of an imaginary utopia for clues to their father's illness.

How to create your own contemporary interior: the ultimate resource for design-conscious living, from architecture to materials to furniture and decorative objects. This ambitious book is all about clean lines, elegant color combinations, maximizing indoor–outdoor relationships, artfully collecting and displaying objects, and utilizing open areas for lounging, cooking, and dining. Whether the living space is large or small, anyone can create a modern interior. Hundreds of photographs reveal stylish residences around the world, in particular from places where modern living has achieved its best expression, such as California, Brazil, Scandinavia, and Australia, but also from places where modern forms have been fused with vernacular styles or set against exotic vegetation. From desert to jungle, from city to country, Living Modern offers a boundless resource for achieving a personal vision of contemporary stylishness.

When Chicagoan Russell Stone begins teaching a Creative Nonfiction class, he is captivated by Thassadit Amzwar, a young Algerian woman whose radiant joy contrasts sharply with his own melancholic nature. Russell is perplexed by her ability to remain happy despite being a refugee from a war-torn country. Concerned for her safety, he delves into research about her homeland and explores happiness manuals, questioning whether her state might be hyperthymia or hypomania. His inquiries lead him to college counselor Candace Weld, who also becomes enchanted by Thassa, known as Miss Generosity among her peers. The attention of the controversial geneticist Thomas Kurton shifts to Thassa when he announces a genotype linked to happiness. As Russell and Candace, now a couple, struggle to protect Thassa from the media frenzy, her innate optimism faces severe challenges. Thassa becomes a living symbol of hope, and her genetic secret has profound implications for Russell, Kurton, and society. The narrative raises critical questions about the intersection of science and human emotion: What happens when happiness is genetically defined? Who controls this knowledge? With humor and magic, the story invites readers to reflect on the implications of altering our own natures in pursuit of happiness.

"Dazzling and audacious. . . Nothing short of astounding." --Philadelphia Inquirer The critically acclaimed debut novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Overstory and the forthcoming Bewilderment. "A writer of blistering intellect . . . [Powers is] a novelist of ideas and a novelist of witness, and in both respects, he has few American peers." -- Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times In the spring of 1914, renowned photographer August Sander took a photograph of three young men on their way to a country dance. This haunting image, capturing the last moments of innocence on the brink of World War I, provides the central focus of Powers's brilliant and compelling novel. As the fate of the three farmers is chronicled, two contemporary stories unfold. The young narrator becomes obsessed with the photo, while Peter Mays, a computer writer in Boston, discovers he has a personal link with it. The three stories connect in a surprising way and offer the reader a glimpse into a mystery that spans a century of brutality and progress.

"A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory. "Richard Powers, whose novels combine the wonders of science with the marvels of art, astonishes us in different ways with each new book." -Heller McAlpin, NPR Books. The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He's also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin's emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother's brain. . . . With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son's ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers's most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?"-- Provided by publisher