Orbital - Samantha Harvey

Orbital

By Samantha Harvey

  • Release Date: 2023-12-05
  • Genre: Literary Fiction
Score: 4
4
From 409 Ratings
$2.99 On itunes Buy on Amazon

Description

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 • A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

**New York Times Book Review Book Club Pick**

**Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show Book Club Pick**

Winner of the 2024 Hawthornden Prize
Shortlisted for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2024 Climate Fiction Prize

One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024

A 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 Times

A 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.

Reviews

  • Boring

    1
    By Trajann
    Incredibly repetitive.

  • Wow a masterpiece

    5
    By JKDjoy
    I did not want this book to end. I felt as if I was floating in space with the astronauts. So beautifully written.

  • Beautifully Written

    5
    By MolinaRJ
    A vivid perspective from the ISS as it orbits the Earth over one day. We see and feel the perspectives of each astronaut as plenty happens back on Earth that affects them in some way. This is a beautifully written novel that was difficult to put down.

  • Stellar Space

    2
    By Scott's take on things
    I didn’t really care for this book. I’d read the reviews listened to a few podcasts about, so I knew what to expect. But it was still just too slow for me. The writing was terrific as all reviewers seem to agree but it felt very repetitive. How many times can you describe the shape of South America?

  • Us, from a critical distance

    5
    By watthamlett
    At once an informative immersion into life on the International Space Station and achingly beautiful meditation on the fragility and resilience of human existence on the blue planet below.

  • Very Fine Book

    5
    By Lou Vest
    A book like very few others. Compares to Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and her description of the total eclipse in Holy the Finn. Shines with the beauty of Cormac McCarthy’s prose without the weight of blood and impending violence. Magnificent.

  • If James Michener wrote a book about space…

    1
    By Sabrina Alfin
    I always hated Michener’s books for being overly descriptive, to the point of letting the minutiae overtake the plot. The same goes for this book which is both overly detailed and plotless. This is less a novel than a meditation. There is almost zero interaction between the characters—instead each astronaut has an internal struggle that space may or may not be able to help them resolve. Thank god this was a short book. At least I didn’t feel I wasted too much of my time.

  • What a gem

    5
    By Adi310
    Never seen before perspective, thought provoking and brilliant

  • Orbital

    5
    By Eva Palomares
    Un libro muy interesante, lleno de filosofía y de ideas sociopolíticas, un poco entre el ensayo y la novela, entre lo científico y la ficción. Entre órbita y órbita, ascendiendo o descendiendo siempre muy interesante el problema de la soledad estando en compañía, la lejanía que te hace estar más cerca. La romántica luna, que no es de queso y a donde, como meta final se llega.

  • Orbital

    5
    By No names thanks
    Beautiful. I never had an interest in Space but I do now.

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