{"id":414,"date":"2025-08-21T10:31:59","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T14:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/common-read\/?page_id=414"},"modified":"2025-08-21T10:32:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T14:32:29","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/common-read\/previous-book\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About the Book"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/common-read\/files\/2025\/06\/DQ-Book-1.png\" alt=\"Orbital by Samantha Harvey\" width=\"200\" height=\"299\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-98 size-full\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Lyrical and introspective, <em>Orbital<\/em>, by Samantha Harvey, touches on the lives of six astronauts and cosmonauts circling Earth in the International Space Station. As they travel together through one day\u201416 sunrises and 16 sunsets\u2014far above Earth, separated from and yet still connected to the planet and relationships they left behind, Harvey balances the often mundane tasks of daily life and staying alive aboard the spacecraft with the beauty and fragility of their home below. Winner of the 2024 Booker Prize, <em>Orbital<\/em> explores themes of nostalgia, memory, time, environmental consciousness, human connection, scientific progress, grief, alienation, and hope.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/common-read\/files\/2025\/08\/Harvey-Samantha-c-Matt-Lincoln.jpg\" alt=\"Samantha Harvey author portrait\" width=\"200\" height=\"207\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-276\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Samantha Harvey<\/h2>\n<p>Named \u201cone of the UK\u2019s most exquisite stylists\u201d by the <em>Guardian<\/em>, Samantha Harvey is the award-winning author of six books. She was born in Kent and lives in Bath, United Kingdom, where she is a Reader in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. She is the first woman to win the Booker Prize since 2019. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/common-read\/current-book\/engagement\/\">Learn more about the author.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Images courtesy of the author<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lyrical and introspective, Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, touches on the lives of six astronauts and cosmonauts circling Earth in the International Space Station. As they travel together through one day\u201416 sunrises and 16 sunsets\u2014far above Earth, separated from and yet still connected to the planet and relationships they left behind, Harvey balances the often mundane [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1859,"featured_media":0,"parent":49,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/common-read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/common-read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/common-read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/common-read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1859"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/common-read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/common-read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/common-read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/414\/revisions\/415"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/common-read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/common-read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}