Orbital

Books | Fiction / Literary

3.3

Samantha Harvey

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 • A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**New York Times Book Review Book Club Pick**Winner of the 2024 Hawthornden Prize Shortlisted for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political FictionShortlisted for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for FictionShortlisted for the 2024 Climate Fiction Prize One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024A singular new novel from Betty Trask Prize-winner Samantha Harvey, Orbital is an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in 24 hours"Ravishingly beautiful." — Joshua Ferris, New York TimesA slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate.Profound and contemplative, Orbital is a moving elegy to our environment and planet.

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More Details:

Author

Samantha Harvey

Pages

193

Publisher

Grove Press

Published Date

2023-12-05

ISBN

0802161553 9780802161550

Community ReviewsSee all

"I loved the writing in this book, but even as I was reading it, I kept thinking: if I'm honest it's only 3 stars. Which also isn't great to be thinking about while I'm reading, but I find I do think of ratings when a book is boring me, in this case because there was no plot. The crazy thing is, I read a review that said if this book's genre was creative nonfiction instead of fiction, it wouldve been better, and I wholeheartedly agree. The expectations and viewpoint of the story would shift and as a reader we would be much better prepared for the book's content. Unfortunately, it wasn't, so 3/5🌏"

Mare

"I love letter to Earth, to space travel and to the little blue dot we live on. Above the earth six astronauts from countries around the world travel in a sine wave-like orbital pattern over the globe, each with her or his own story and all inspired by space. I admit to expecting some plot-driven mechanics in the story, but then I surrendered to the rhythmic orbits and the lyrical writing, imagining myself in a capsule orienting myself to the planet using oceans, mountains, cities, land formations and the Terminator (the space travelers’ description of the harsh line formed as night devours day as they travel 250 miles over Earth). Two images stood out for me: From space, human beings are invisible during daylight hours, but their presence appears at night as land-bound lights outlining cities, coastlines and ports. Second, the insatiable wants of human beings visibly change the look of the planet through agriculture, mining, logging, development and fishing, consuming the earth’s resources without a care. Samantha Harvey’s book will sit with me for a long time."

Diane Morello

"“…and the horizons of possibility that open out at their fingers will only confirm their own smallness and briefness.” Okay, so, I just finished "Orbital" by Samantha Harvey, and wow. Just wow. I don't even know where to start. It's one of those books that sticks with you, like, really sticks. Basically, it's about the International Space Station, right? But it's not some dry, technical thing. Harvey makes you feel like you're up there. You can feel the weightlessness, the quiet, the sheer vastness of space. And she does it by focusing on the small things, the everyday routines of the astronauts, the way they see the Earth. It's not a plot-driven book, which I usually like, but this? This was different. It's more like a meditation, a really beautiful and thoughtful one. The writing is just gorgeous, so simple and clear, but it paints these incredible pictures in your head. I felt like I was floating along with them, looking down at our planet, and it made me think about everything in a whole new way. Honestly, I was a bit worried it might be boring, but it was anything but. It was captivating, moving, and just… profound. I've never read anything quite like it. If you want a book that makes you stop and think, that makes you see the world differently, read "Orbital." 5 stars, absolutely."