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Orbital: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024
Samantha Harvey
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Description for Orbital: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024
paperback.
**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024**
'A slim, profound study of intimate human fears set against epic vistas'
GUARDIAN
'Stunning... An uplifting book'
SUNDAY TIMES
Life on our planet as you've never seen it before
A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows ... Read moreof spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.
Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction.
The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?
'Our unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition. It reflects Harvey’s extraordinary intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world we share' Edmund de Waal, Chair of the 2024 Booker Prize judges
*A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR, DAILY MAIL AND MAIL ON SUNDAY*
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Product Details
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
About Samantha Harvey
Samantha Harvey is the author of the novels The Wilderness, All is Song, Dear Thief and The Western Wind and a work of non-fiction, The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping. Her work has been longlisted for the Booker Prize, and shortlisted for the James Tait Black Award, the Women's Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the Walter ... Read moreScott Prize. The Wilderness was awarded the Betty Trask Prize. She is a tutor on the MA course in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Show Less
Reviews for Orbital: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024
Our unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition. It reflects Harvey’s extraordinary intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world we share
Edmund de Waal, Chair of the 2024 Booker Prize judges In this slender novel, Harvey seems to have encompassed all of humanity… It is an extraordinary achievement
Observer
Gorgeously poetic… I was knocked ... Read moreout. It’s also surprisingly funny… One of the most original novels I’ve read this year
Sunday Times,
Books of the Year
Harvey beautifully evokes the wonder and fragility of our planet and its inhabitants. An uplifting book, in every sense
Guardian,
Books of the Year
In Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, six astronauts circle the world 16 times. Gliding through Harvey’s technicolour prose is an equally frictionless experience
Financial Times,
Books of the Year
Orbital is the rarest of things, a book that satisfies both my lifelong obsession with space travel and my hunger for sentences and paragraphs that demand to be read and reread… My goodness this novel is beautiful
New Statesman,
Books of the Year
Eerily beautiful
Spectator,
Books of the Year
One of our most consistently surprising novelists rips up the rulebook again… A boldly imaginative meditation on time and the nature of existence
Daily Mail,
Books of the Year
Orbital is entirely original, a serenely beautiful and intelligent creation
Mail on Sunday,
Books of the Year
This genius novel… Asks big questions about humanity and the fragility of our lives… A short yet exquisite read
i
In outer space the author hits on the pure swirlingness that her previous works seem to aspire to. The characters’ thoughts mix and flow with the colours and light… Sumptuously written
Times Literary Supplement
A slender, gleaming novel… Weaving a line of philosophical enquiry through her luminous prose has become something of a trademark for Samantha Harvey
Spectator
Very beautiful and very special
New Scientist
One of the most original novels I’ve read in a long time. It’s bold, it’s scintillating and it’s gloriously imaginative… [it] puts humanity into a brave new perspective
The Times
A slim, profound study of intimate human fears set against epic vistas of swirling weather patterns and rolling continents
Guardian
Samantha Harvey is one of Britain’s most fascinating writers and this novel is characterized by her sense of awe
Evening Standard
Stunning… The beauty of the prose engages the reader fully… An uplifting book
Sunday Times
In contrast to the bleak apocalyptic tone of much contemporary climate fiction, Orbital’s luminous descriptions remind us of the beauty at stake when humanity plays fast and loose with our single, and singular, blue marble
Financial Times
Harvey’s impressively researched, poetic novel carries a powerful ecological message. Above all, thought, it’s a brilliantly imaginative account of life with the vastness of the cosmos just outside your window
Mail on Sunday
Mesmerising… Harvey blends prose of poetic beauty with a clarion call to take responsibility for where we live… Orbital deserves to propel Harvey to far greater recognition
i
A gorgeous novel… An intensely charged reading experience, sustained by the sensory thrill of Harvey’s imaginative attention to detail
Daily Mail
I loved this short novel, which explores the inner-lives of astronauts as they orbit a troubled, unstable planet. There’s little in the way of plot but the writing is so exquisite, the sense of awe and beauty so well-achieved that I tore through it in a single sitting
David Nicholls Orbital is as beautiful as it is profound
Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven Beautiful in every aspect
Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater One of the most beautiful novels I have read in a very long time
Mark Haddon, author of The Porpoise This is such a beautiful book you have to adjust your readerly heart to take it all in... It is an awe-inspiring and humbling love letter to Earth and those who reckon with the gift of it
Max Porter, author of Shy Six astronauts on a space station are working, sleeping, and watching the world go by. They think about typhoons, algal blooms, seascapes, cities at night, Velázquez, frog calls, fried eggs, family. Orbital is a lush description of the gorgeous earth, and a broad-minded, level-headed, affectionate take on what goes on down here
Daisy Hildyard, author of Emergency Show Less
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