This writing in this book transported me. It took me out of my skin and put me on the International Space Station with the astronauts. I've never read anything quite like it.
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, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of…
A truly powerful historical novel about Philadelphia during World War 1. Based on the life of the author's grandmother, this book brings the wartime streets and neighborhoods alive in unforgettable detail. It describes the wrenching economic stress, the role of women in factories, and the ravages of the influenza epidemic with empathy and heart. The characters are powerfully, soulfully alive.
“Kephart distills the precarious nature of life bracketed by the dual tragedies of that era with palpable humanity, aching depth, and timeless understanding.”
— Booklist, Starred Review (Carol Haggas)
“staggeringly beautiful”
— Small Press Picks (Beth Castrodale)
"Kephart approaches her grandmother's story with compassion, patching over the gaps in the history with her own interpretations to create a tender story of one woman's life.”
— Washington Post Book World (Kat Trigarszky)
"It draws a reader into a different sense of time and place, while revealing the ever-so-human moments of dealing with deep grief as well as moments of sweet joy.…
I think this is the only novel I've ever read that features a pygmy hippo. I'm a fan of Ogawa's fiction, especially The Memory Police. This novel, told with a striking and buoyant honesty from the point of view of a twelve-year-old who spends a year in the home of wealthy relatives, is a delightful portrait of an eccentric, yet loving family that learns to live in harmony with its secrets.
On sleepless nights, I open the matchbox and reread the story of the girl who gathered shooting stars.
After the death of her father, twelve-year-old Tomoko is sent to live for a year with her uncle in the coastal town of Ashiya. It is a year which will change her life.
The 1970s are bringing changes to Japan and her uncle's magnificent colonial mansion opens up a new and unfamiliar world for Tomoko; its sprawling gardens are even home to a pygmy hippo the family keeps as a pet. Tomoko finds her relatives equally exotic and beguiling and her growing…
In a world where the economy has been reduced to barter and trade, the central character of Scribe ekes out a living writing letters for hire. When a stranger asks her to write and deliver a letter to a mysterious crossroads, the ghosts of her troubled past begin to haunt her on her journey. Drawing on the traditional folktales of Appalachia, Scribe is a gripping, swiftly plotted novel that touches on the pressing issues of our time--migration and the temptations of authoritarianism--to make the case for the power of stories to transform us.
