Orbital by Samantha Harvey Winner of the Booker Prize 2024

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 Orbital by Samantha Harvey Winner of the Booker Prize 2024
THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

‘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 Orbital by Samantha Harvey Winner of the Booker Prize 2024

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 of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day. orbital by samantha harvey summary

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. Orbital by Samantha Harvey Winner of the Booker Prize 2024.

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? Orbital by Samantha Harvey Winner of 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

A orbital by samantha harvey summary BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR, DAILY MAIL AND MAIL ON SUNDAY Orbital by Samantha Harvey Winner of the Booker Prize 2024