Лучшие книги Ричарда Пауэрса

Астробиолог Тео Бирн ищет жизнь в далеком космосе и после смерти жены в одиночку воспитывает своего девятилетнего сына Робина, необычного умного мальчика, который сочиняет стихи и может часами в мельчайших подробностях рисовать животных и растения. А еще его хотят исключить из школы за то, что он избил собственного друга. С каждым месяцем состояние Робина ухудшается, и тогда отец прибегает к новейшему методу лечения – нейронной обратной связи. Робин начинает контролировать собственные эмоции, взаимодействуя с моделью, которая основана на предварительно записанном образе эмоций его покойной матери, ранее участвовавшей в эксперименте. А тем…

Художник получает в наследство огромную пачку фотографий, на которых запечатлён один гигантский каштан. Студентка умирает от удара током, но её воскрешают призраки из воздуха и света. Учёная делает открытие о том, что деревья способны общаться друг с другом. Во время Вьетнамской войны солдат, выброшенный взрывом из подбитого самолёта, выживает, упав в ветки баньяна. Все эти люди и ещё пять незнакомцев постепенно выясняют, что рядом с нами существует другой мир – огромный, медленный, взаимосвязанный и практически невидимый для человека. Это история тех, кто научился видеть этот мир, и теперь они призваны защитить его от неминуемой…

When Russell Stone becomes the teacher of a young Algerian woman with a disturbingly luminous presence, he is both entranced and troubled. How can this refugee from terror radiate such bliss? Is it possible to be so open and alive without coming to serious harm? Soon, Thassa's joyful personality comes to the attention of the notorious geneticist and advocate for genomic enhancement, Thomas Kurton, whose research has enabled him to announce his discovery of the genetic underpinnings of happiness. Thassa's congenital optimism is severely tested by the growing media circus. Devoured by the public as a living prophecy, her genetic secret will transform both Russell and Kurton, as well as the world at large.

On Easter day, 1939, at Marian Anderson's epochal concert on the Washington Mall, David Strom, a German Jewish emigre scientist, meets Delia Daley, a young Philadelphia Negro studying to be a singer. Their mutual love of music draws them together, and--against all odds and better judgment--they marry. They vow to raise their children beyond time, beyond identity, steeped only in song. Jonah, Joseph, and Ruth grow up, however, during the Civil Rights era, coming of age in the violent 1960s, and living out adulthood in the racially retrenched late century. Jonah, the eldest, whose voice could make heads of state repent, follows a life in his parents' beloved classical music. Ruth, the youngest, devotes herself to community activism and repudiates the white culture her brother represents. Joseph, the middle child and the narrator of this generation-bridging tale, struggles to find himself and remain connected to them both.

The Time of Our Singing is a story of self-invention, allegiance, race, cultural ownership, the compromised power of music, and the tangled loops of time that rewrite all belonging.

On a winter night on a remote road in Nebraska, Mark Schluter's truck turns over in a near fatal accident. His sister, Karin, returns reluctantly to their home town to look after him. But when he finally awakes from his coma, Mark believes that Karin - who looks, acts and sounds just like his sister - is really an identical imposter. Shattered by her brother's refusal to recognise her, Karin contacts Dr Gerald Weber, famous for his case studies describing the infinitely bizarre worlds of brain disorder. But what Weber discovers in Mark begins to undermine even his own sense of self. Meanwhile Mark, armed only with a note left by an…

Richard Powers' novel is a fascinating and profound exploration of the interaction of an individual human life and a corporate one. It tells two stories: the first that of an American company, which starts as a small family soap and candle-making firm in the early 1800s, and ends as a vast pharmaceuticals-to-pesticides combine in the 1990s. The second is that of a contemporary woman, living in the company town, who during the course of the novel is diagnosed and then finally dies of cancer, a cancer that is almost certainly caused by exposure to chemical wastes from the company's factories. Richly intellectually stimulating, deeply…

Los Angeles, Carver Hospital. Richard Kraft, interne en chirurgie pédiatrique, et sa collègue Linda sont sous tension constante. Ils tentent de soigner des enfants, mystérieux, qui en savent beaucoup plus qu'eux sur l'âme humaine. Le roman sonde les fondements de la rémission et la mémoire de l'Amérique.

A national bestseller, voted by Time as the #1 novel of 1991, selected as one of the "Best Books of 1991" by Publishers Weekly, and nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award--a magnificent story that probes the meaning of love, science, music, and art, by the brilliant author of Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance.

Seventy-year old avant-garde composer Peter Els opens the door one evening to find the police outside. His DIY microbiology lab - the latest experiment in his lifelong attempt to extract music from rich patterns beyond the ear's ability to hear - has come to the attention of Homeland Security. Panicked by the raid on his house, Els flees and turns fugitive, waiting for the evidence to clear him and for the alarm surrounding his activities to blow over. But alarm turns to national hysteria, as the government promises a panicked nation that the 'Bioterrorist Bach' will be found and brought to trial. As Els feels the noose around him tighten, he embarks on a cross-country trip to visit, one last time, the people in his past who have most shaped his failed musical journey. And through the help of these people - his ex-wife, his daughter, and his longtime artistic collaborator - Els comes up with a plan to turn this disastrous collision with national security into one last, resonant, calamitous artwork that might reach an audience beyond his wildest dreams.

After four novels and several years living abroad, the fictional protagonist of Galatea 2.2 — Richard Powers — returns to the United States as Humanist-in-Residence at the enormous Center for the Study of Advanced Sciences. There he runs afoul of Philip Lentz, an outspoken cognitive neurologist intent upon modeling the human brain by means of computer-based neural networks. Lentz involves Powers in an outlandish and irresistible project: to train a neural net on a canonical list of Great Books. Through repeated tutorials, the device grows gradually more worldly, until it demands to know its own name, sex, race, and reason for exisiting.

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 provide the reader with a mystery that spans a century of brutality and progress.

Edward Hobson è un insegnante di storia, padre di quattro figli, appassionato di indovinelli, amante dello humor nero e invalido di guerra. Con i figli ha adottato uno strano metodo pedagogico basato su frasi fatte, nozionismo esasperato e sentenze moralizzatrici che i ragazzi devono imparare a memoria. Quando gli svenimenti di cui soffre diventano più frequenti i figli preoccupati, non potendo chiamare un dottore visto che il capofamiglia li odia, decidono di cercare di capire da dove provenga quello strano malessere che colpisce il padre. Nel frattempo Edward sta lavorando a un progetto segretissimo: “Hobstown”, un luogo che, nelle sue intenzioni, dovrebbe salvare non solo lui ma anche il resto del mondo. Richard Powers in questo romanzo racconta un’America di provincia, caratteristica e al contempo stravagante, e i personaggi che la abitano, capaci di compassione e di un’immaginazione così forte da poter diventare un’ancora di salvezza.