Orfeo has been chosen as one of five works of fiction recommended by the editors of The New York Times Sunday Book Review for the week of January 19, 2014.

“Fiction Chronicle: The Staff of Life,” a review of Orfeo by Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2014.  The reviewer also notes that Orfeo is the first novel he has encountered “that incorporates Twitter in a smart and interesting way.” Powers reaffirms the magnetic attraction between music and the miracle of life…  Orfeo alternates between bittersweet memories, Read More

“Richard Powers points to the power of art in ‘Orfeo’,” by Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 17, 2014. Powers develops his reflections on art through the book’s crown jewels: a series of deliriously beautiful, musically sophisticated readings involving 20th-century pieces….

A limited edition of Orfeo, with signed tipped-in page, is available as part of a subscription series from Powell’s Books.

“What to Read With It: ‘Orfeo’ author Richard Powers recommends Alex Ross’ ‘The Rest Is Noise’,” Contra Costa Times, January 16, 2014. [Richard Powers] was not only happy to share the most recent titles on his reading list, but was willing to recommend one of them as the book most likely to shed extra light on,, Read More

“Richard Powers’ ‘Orfeo’ sends a composer on the lam,” a review by Dan Cryer, Newsday, January 16, 2014. Powers brings his characters to life through vivid dialogue and language sometimes musical and always attentive to precise detail. … his evocations of music, let alone lost love, simply soar off the page. …  Peter Els emerges as, Read More

“Richard Powers’ ‘Orfeo’ explores art and surveillance in the information age: A retired composer wrongly becomes public enemy No. 1 in lightning speed in Richard Powers’ moving ‘Orfeo.’” A review by David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, January 16, 2014. Powers integrates these bits of narrative deftly, like the interweaving of a million strands of DNA. Yet, Read More

Orfeo reviewed by Keith Staskiewicz, Entertainment Weekly, January 15, 2014. Powers’ writing is complex and heady without being headachy, and his synesthetic descriptions of finding melodies in the mundane are full of their own kind of music.

“Music and science meld in Richard Powers’ ‘Orfeo’,” by Georgia Rowe, San Jose Mercury News, January 19, 2013. “Orfeo” is ultimately about the creative impulse, which Powers suggests will always be with us. “Each historical moment has its crisis,” he says. “Human hunger is complicated. But we will always want serious things. We have a need, Read More

“‘Orfeo’ author captures myriad emotions in the early ’70s,” by Rob Cline, The Gazette, January 12, 2014. “Orfeo” is beautiful, challenging, and haunting, a composition that captures a period of time while hinting at timelessness.

Review of Orfeo, by Harvey Freedenberg, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, January 11, 2014. “Orfeo” is that rare novel truly deserving of the label “lyrical.” Powers’ gorgeous and deeply felt writing about music sent me back to Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony and introduced me to Steve Reich’s “Proverb.” This is an ambitious work of broad scope and big ideas, like most, Read More

“Anywhere, Nowhere, Elsewhere, Everywhere: Music takes us beyond time  in Richard Powers’ Orfeo.” by Scott Korb, Slate, January 10, 2014. …Orfeo is a first-class American road novel…[In] this retelling of the Orpheus myth Powers also manages enchantment—or, re-enchantment, if you, like so many of us, believe the world today needs that…[Over] his career Powers has shown himself to be a, Read More