SocProf reviewed Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Couldn't finish
1 star
It just was so boring.
Audiobook
English language
Published Nov. 2, 2023 by Penguin Random House.
Orbital
4 stars
(5 reviews)
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. 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 …
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. 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?
J. J. Zepfanman @...readers reviewed Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Booker Prize winner contemplates our place on Earth and the universe
4 stars
So many facets of humanity packed into this short novel. The plot is loose, detailing the thoughts of International Space Station astronauts during their 16 orbits around the Earth in 24 hours. All while a massive typhoon approaches Southeast Asia, and another space crew approaches for a Moon landing.
The English author, Samantha Harvey, brilliantly enters the minds of the multi-national crew, each with their own perspective on what kind of meaning their lives have. Overall, a scientific, poetic, and philosophical treatise.
(I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Sarah Naudi.)
Marek reviewed Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Swept along by gorgeous prose.
4 stars
I picked this up having not seen it before, from the combination of the blurb and the reviews on the cover, promising a beautiful book about astronauts on the International Space Station.
It is precisely that. Delicious, evocative, and poetic prose in a sweeping flow that both captures the disorienting combination of the banal and extraordinary of life in space. Astronauts in (or "on") orbit are inevitably some of the most capable and amazing people alive, but their lives are finely regimented and filled with finicky, highly structured work and lots and lots of housekeeping. The juxtaposition of that caretaking work with the fact they are in space, looking down on the world beneath from a god's-eye view, is central to the narrative here. It is less a story, and more an exploration of the humanity in the extraordinariness of the astronauts, and the extraordinary in the ordinariness of the …
I picked this up having not seen it before, from the combination of the blurb and the reviews on the cover, promising a beautiful book about astronauts on the International Space Station.
It is precisely that. Delicious, evocative, and poetic prose in a sweeping flow that both captures the disorienting combination of the banal and extraordinary of life in space. Astronauts in (or "on") orbit are inevitably some of the most capable and amazing people alive, but their lives are finely regimented and filled with finicky, highly structured work and lots and lots of housekeeping. The juxtaposition of that caretaking work with the fact they are in space, looking down on the world beneath from a god's-eye view, is central to the narrative here. It is less a story, and more an exploration of the humanity in the extraordinariness of the astronauts, and the extraordinary in the ordinariness of the Earth that they so eagerly and passionately leave behind.
Except they are tethered to it, psychologically, and spend huge amounts of their days ensuring the ISS is kept as close to Earth-like as it can be, because that's what makes space at all liveable.
There was some ebb and flow to the reading of this, for me, times when I lost it a little bit, though that was likely to do with me and the way I was reading it as much as anything to do with the writing.
I found this book beautiful, for its humanity, and its invigoration of our relationship to the Earth. It's short, and well worth your time.
Markus 🌱 reviewed Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Vakkert
Ikkje det eg hadde forventa. Eit inspirerande og tankeløftande døgn på romstasjonen, vakkert fortalt.
Woordenaar reviewed Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Beste boek dat ik las in 2024
5 stars
Op de valreep lees ik het beste boek van het jaar. Orbital won dit jaar de Booker Prize, iets wat ik helemaal gemist had. Het boek verteld het verhaal van 4 astronauten en 2 kosmonauten aan boord van de ISS. Alles speelt zich af in 24 uur, waarin de ISS 16 omwentelingen om de aarde maakt. Als mij vraagt waar het boek over gaat, antwoord ik "waarnemen". Of het nu om het waarnemen van grote dingen gaat, de aarde zelf, over de ontwikkeling van weersomstandigheden, het gebrek aan grenzen vanuit de ruimte, of over kleine dingen zoals experimenten met mos of muizen, over gevoelens of kunst. Briliant geschreven, er moet een onwijze tijd aan voorbereiding in dit boek zitten. Ik heb wel eens een interview met André Kuipers beluisterd en wat hij toen vertelde lees ik hierin terug.
[...]You'll see no countries, just a rolling indivisible globe which knows no …
Op de valreep lees ik het beste boek van het jaar. Orbital won dit jaar de Booker Prize, iets wat ik helemaal gemist had. Het boek verteld het verhaal van 4 astronauten en 2 kosmonauten aan boord van de ISS. Alles speelt zich af in 24 uur, waarin de ISS 16 omwentelingen om de aarde maakt. Als mij vraagt waar het boek over gaat, antwoord ik "waarnemen". Of het nu om het waarnemen van grote dingen gaat, de aarde zelf, over de ontwikkeling van weersomstandigheden, het gebrek aan grenzen vanuit de ruimte, of over kleine dingen zoals experimenten met mos of muizen, over gevoelens of kunst. Briliant geschreven, er moet een onwijze tijd aan voorbereiding in dit boek zitten. Ik heb wel eens een interview met André Kuipers beluisterd en wat hij toen vertelde lees ik hierin terug.
[...]You'll see no countries, just a rolling indivisible globe which knows no possibility of separation, let alone war.[...]
Dit boek ga ik zeker nog eens herlezen.