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Orbital by Samantha Harvey with lecturer Michael King

  • Books on the Hill 1 Holywell Hill St Albans, England, AL1 1ER United Kingdom (map)

We are delighted to announce our next lecture will explore Booker 2024 winner Orbital by Samantha Harvey.

Tea and coffee will be provided throughout the session.

To book your place, please click here.

About the book~

Life on our planet as you've never seen it beforeA 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?

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January 30

January Classics Book Club: Persuasion by Jane Austen