Combining an urgent message about the state of our planet - and us humans - with luminous hope and a refusal to sink into despair, the author of former Book of the Month The Western Wind delivers an affectionate, deeply human saga of six astronauts in space reflecting on life back down on Earth.
Exclusive Edition with silver foil on the title, orange board colour and coloured endpaper
Winner of the Booker Prize 2024
Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2024
Six astronauts rotate in their spacecraft contemplating the world below.
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?
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781787335714
Number of pages: 144
Weight: 229 g
Dimensions: 206 x 136 x 17 mm
This is my top read of 2023. Small yet mighty and everything a good novel should be.
Orbital is one of those rare books which makes you look inward and outward at the same time. You are confronted with the...
More
I’m in awe of how such a simple premise, such a slightness of plot, could coalesce into such a mesmerising, ethereal and tender read. An utterly, utterly beautiful and epic read encapsulated by the slimmest of... More
This book is beautifully written and really makes you think about the bigger picture. Such a unique piece of writing too, as it is fiction but almost reads as fact.
Please sign in to write a review
Would you like to proceed to the App store to download the Waterstones App?
