Orbital
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.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
3mentions
3people
2024–2025years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Man’s Search For Meaning (Frankl), The Color Purple (Walker), Orbital (Harvey)
Not specifically for the HN community but these are the only books I read this year that I would recommend without qualification.
- My favorites that I read this year were:
- Playground by Richard Powers: the ocean reminds us that we, along with our obsessions and rivalries, are small - Orbital by Samantha Harvey: a book were not much happens, but a lot goes on below the surface - Hum by Helen Phillips: looks at an AI controlled near future through a different lens - Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow: sex, lies, and video games
- A few of the books that stand out that I've read this year.
Troubled - Rob Henderson. About how Henderson was in state care and wound up at prestigious universities and his thoughts on the world.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/176444107-troubled
Not the End of the World - Hannah Ritchie from 'Our World in Data' about the state of the planet.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/145624737-not-the-end-of...
Dictatorland - Paul Kenyon - About the dictators who have impoverished Africa.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36260719-dictatorland
Magic Pill - Johann Hari - About Semaglutide and how people got fat.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201319612-magic-pill
On the Edge - Nate Silver - About how seeing the world in terms of risk and expected value can work.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204236707-on-the-edge
Orbital - Samantha Harvey - Booker Prize winner about people on the ISS and the world.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123136728-orbital
Build, Baby, Build - Bryan Caplan on why YIMBYism is a good idea. This is a graphic novel. It's really fun.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/181564537-build-baby-bui...
