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Hay Book Club

Monthly in-person book club in Hay-On-Wye, UK

Welcome to Chichester Readers; a group of people who love books. The general idea is to meet every month or so, all having read the same book and to have a bit of a natter over a glass or two of wine. Marvellous!

The Book Club has some guidelines which we follow or ignore as we choose. The “rules” are as follows:

1st Rule of Book Club: The readers choose the next read in a 'democratic' process

2nd Rule of Book Club: You may talk about Book Club

3rd Rule of Book Club: We don't choose a read that any of the readers have already read

4th Rule of Book Club: Readers bring suggestions for the next read to the Meetup

5th Rule of Book Club: We're happy to read anything as long as it is in paperback at a reasonable price

The sixth unwritten rule is that any book over about 550 pages doesn't make it through the voting process. People with a lot to do besides reading a book just don't have the time for DAVID COPPERFIELD in a month!

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Adam’s Contemporary Literary Fiction Book Club

A monthly zoom book club to read new literary fiction run by London based theatre director Adam Lenson

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Orbital: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner)

By Samantha Harvey

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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.

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224 pages

Average rating: 7.44

39 RATINGS

6 REVIEWS

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richardbakare

Dec 18, 2024

8/10 stars

Samantha Harvey’s “Orbital” offers a compelling perspective on existence packed into a swift read. What’s more is that there is no underlying catalyst or event that moves the story other than the question of what it all means to even exist. In that sense, the book is a stealth series of essays in the guise of a novel. Harvey uses the 3rd person omniscient to examine the big question from every angle. This approach is perhaps the only way to analyze how an analysis like this could play out. No one perspective is valued better than another. All claims are equal and suspect at the same time. It is a study of a group of six that says something profound about the fragile unity of the larger human collective. The broader unifying theme is of looking at Earth as the home we all share but only truly grasped from the unique perspective of space. There is a line in the book that grips you and perfectly encapsulates this theme; “Without that planet, there is no life.” Harvey also develops an invisible tether of love between humans as a plot device that demonstrates how our personal connections create orbits between people. Overall, the book offers intriguing insights into what the extraterrestrial experience is like for astronauts. Moreover, Harvey has crafted a love letter to Earth, our solar system, the International Space Station, and astronauts. That love is represented by some of the most beautiful lines I’ve ever read.

Anonymous

Nov 18, 2024

8/10 stars

This is exactly the type of scifi that I absolutely adore -something that doesn't require heavy world building but focuses more on the philosophical and sociological aspects of individuals' lives. I loved how every character had their own moments to shine without being isolated from their collective journey of spacewalking. I'd love to read more scifi like this!

Steve Crandall

Nov 12, 2024

10/10 stars

Wow! While close to plotless, this short work is moving a profound. It treats near Earth orbit as a human experience witnessed over a day by six crew people on the InternationalSpace Station before the program ends. Very different from what I was expected, it leaves me in a deeply contemplative mood. Almost a 10 - I’ll round up. Go for the audiobook!

Anonymous

Oct 15, 2024

4/10 stars

Who would have thought that writing about the monotony of circling the globe could result in such a dull book?

2.5/5

reiver

Aug 06, 2024

9/10 stars

Evocative and poetic!