Orbital (c)2023 by Samantha Harvey was one of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024. It also won a bunch of prizes and awards, including the Booker Prize. It is a slim novel that follows six astronauts at the International Space Station for twenty four hours. The astronauts hail from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan. Because of the speed of the ISS as it orbits the Earth, they experience sixteen sunrises and sunsets throughout their twenty four hours.
This book is something of a quiet meditation. There is not much excitement or drama, just a single, uneventful day in the lives of six astronauts in space. We get to see the lives of each astronaut in turn as they complete their regimented schedules--taking time to look out the window on what is going down below them.
I have forgotten all the names now, but two storylines really stuck with me. First, the Japanese astronaut has recently learned that her mother has passed away down on Earth. She is dealing with her grief and isolation when she wants to be with her family. We even see the space station from her mother's point of view before she dies. Second, there is a hurricane building power and threatening Indonesia and the Philippines. The astronauts are tasked with taking pictures and relaying information back down to Earth whenever the hurricane is within view. But one of the astronauts made friends with a fisherman and his family in the area when they were scuba diving. He worries for his friend and his family, and he wonders what will happen to them as he sits up in space.
Although this book could be slow at times, it showed the Earth from a different perspective than we non-astronauts ever see. One beautiful planet with no obvious distinctions between countries. The clouds, storms, deserts, mountains, and majestic lakes on one giant ball that somehow supports all of humanity--except for those six astronauts out on their own.