
Orbital
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Narrated by:
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Sarah Naudi
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By:
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Samantha Harvey
About this listen
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024
Winner of the 2024 Hawthornden Prize
Shortlisted for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction
A singular new novel from Betty Trask Prize winner Samantha Harvey, Orbital is an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in 24 hours
"Ravishingly beautiful."—Joshua Ferris, New York Times
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.
Profound and contemplative, Orbital is a moving elegy to our environment and planet.
©2023 Samantha Harvey (P)2023 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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it did a good job keep me listening but disappointed at the ending
- By Tristan M. on 12-21-24
By: Eric Buchman, and others
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I did not enjoy this
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Can't say it's good
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Would give six stars if possible
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The Becomings: Intelligence Beyond Mind 📖 Book 1 of The Becomings Series 🌀 Reality is shifting. Perception is unraveling. 🌀 When data analyst Elias Verne sees a message appear and vanish on a café chalkboard, he blames exhaustion. But when reality itself begins to shift, he realizes something is watching. Then, a stranger hands him a book—with his own name on the spine. As Elias searches for answers, forgotten memories resurface, shadowy forces close in, and the world he thought he knew begins to unravel. 🌀 What if the limits of perception were never real? 🌀 And what ...
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Painfully powerful Tale.
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Martyr!
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One of the best novels I have ever read/heard.
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From one of our most accomplished novelists, a mesmerizing story about a mother and daughter seeking refuge in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War.
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Beautifully written historical novel
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One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat, and has the sense that his life has been changed forever. Obsessed by the power of those words—and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa—Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh. There, thrust into an open society that is miles away from the world he knew in Libya, Khaled begins to change.
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Beautifully written
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By: Hisham Matar
What listeners say about Orbital
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- NW Native
- 12-03-24
One of the most beautiful novels ever.
Profoundly poetic and inspiring. Stunning prose. This and All the Beautiful Horses may be my all time favorites.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Aranesan
- 10-09-24
A short delight
Harvey uses the trajectory of an orbiting space station experiencing an unearthly sixteen sunrises in a single day as it traverses around the planet to trace out the apparent plotlessness of human life on spaceship earth as we float in space.
Within this framework she focuses the lenses wide and long as we take in the whole world, micro to macro, the progress of humankind, the evolution of life and the universe and the oneness we should feel being in this rather lonely universe.
This was a short delight.
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- Darlene Chalker
- 12-12-24
Lyrical narration
Poetic, lyrical, profound descriptions of life on the space station as the astronauts experience multiple days and nights on earth as they speed around the planet over and over. We are given a tour of the earth through sunrises and sunsets and their connections to earth which are both grounding and mystical.
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- Kent Sturcken
- 12-02-24
A fine blend of prose and poetry
A wonderful voyage through the void. The blend of pros and poetry was really something unique. Not a lot of action.
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- Hawaiian 54
- 12-10-24
The remive from emotion the speaker gives as the story progresses.
So dry.
So far removed from joy and beauty.
Interesting but felt very clinical.
Good attempt at multinational representation but still-very dry.
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- Daniel A.
- 01-15-25
Many passages to really think about, terrible audiobook
I'm not sure how the narrator chose this profession.. she has an off-again, mostly on-again lisp, but what makes for more difficult listening is that she completely aspirated or doesn't even pronounce the final "s" sounds of most words. at least for plural words you can usually tell it by context, but for other parts I had no clue what word(s) she had just said. I felt like this would've made for an enjoyable listening otherwise..
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1 person found this helpful
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- Lynn
- 12-13-24
a meditation more than a novel
The writing is quite lyrical and evocative, but there's essentially no plot and only sketches of characters. Really disliked the wispy-voiced narration style. Recording seems to have some technical issues where the sound fades in and out as if the reader was shifting in her seat.
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- cms
- 12-20-24
Wonderful
Beautiful language, spectacular imagery, deeply human. Lovely voice too. Was disappointed when it ended, looking forward to more from the author.
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- BOYD C MYERS
- 01-01-25
One Day
An immersive journey above our orb. Visions, dreams, fears, big picture, spacial expanse, sine waves of travel from a dimension few experience. I’m glad someone suggested I buy a ticket. I too will encourage others. Thank you Samantha for knitting the words to paint a video immersion!
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- Dawn Marie Costorf
- 02-12-25
Beautiful
This book is a beautiful piece of art that encompasses all of humanity. I highly recommend reading and contemplating the unity of the planet.
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2 people found this helpful