Richard Powers

5 summariesLiterary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Psychology

Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel The Echo Maker won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction. He has also won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship. As of 2023, Powers has published thirteen novels and has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford University. He won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory.

Books by Richard Powers

5 books available

The Overstory
Richard Powers
4.1 (73k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction
Nine lives, bound by the silent wisdom of trees, unite in a desperate fight against humanity's destruction of nature.
The Echo Maker
Richard Powers
3.4 (9k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction
After an accident makes him believe his sister is an impostor, a man's search for answers unravels his mind and the lives of those around him, as migrating cranes reflect their world's delicate balance.
Orfeo
Richard Powers
3.6 (5k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction
An aging composer, mistaken for a bioterrorist because of his home microbiology lab, flees authorities with a plan to turn his search for hidden musical patterns into a final artistic statement.
The Time of Our Singing
Richard Powers
4.3 (3k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction
Three mixed-race siblings, raised with music and a dream of transcending identity, find their lives separating as one becomes an activist, another faces racial stereotypes in opera, and the third tries to hold their fractured family together.
The Gold Bug Variations
Richard Powers
4.1 (2k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction
A reclusive molecular biologist and a data entry clerk find their lives, and the mysteries of love, music, and science, linked by a forgotten computer program and the ghost of Bach.