Orbital by Samantha Harvey

I described this as a dreamy novel with a bit of a dark back beat--which is maybe of my own making. Reviewers of the book did not get that vibe, but I definitely did. Six astronauts are bobbing about in zero gravity in a spacecraft, looking out at their planet as they circle it. From their vantage point, 250 miles above the surface,the whole of Earth looks different, more fragile and in some ways more knowable. The astronauts go about their laboratory tasks, monitoring microbes or the growth of cabbages. They work with a sense of vocation that is unabated after months on the mission. Nothing has dimmed for them. Earth is newly ravishing every moment as it moves with predictable grace. Sometimes the observers want to see the planet’s most theatrical displays, but often it’s the small things that most affect them. For me, the back drop is that things on Earth are falling apart, and yet from space, it is harder to discern the collapse. It looks fragile, to be sure, but also quite untouched and beautiful.