Orbital

by Samantha Harvey (2023)

A Booker Prize winning novel with essentially no plot, Orbital captures the reflections of six fictional astronauts on the International Space Station as they go about the routine of a single day in space. Harvey put this project aside at one point, recognizing the hubris of an earthbound author trying to capture the experience of being in space. She picked it up again after deciding she had something to say about how each of us can look at the earth and humanity from the perspective of space, and her extensive research allowed her to use without embarrassment her exceptional gifts of (as she has said) alchemizing emotions into words. Like those who have been in space, readers of Orbital may never look at Earth in the same way.

I read a hard copy of this book.