India, Dec. 26 -- I read Samantha Harvey's Orbital in January, which left a high watermark for the year. It is slim at about 140 pages. I thought I'd speed through the 2024 Booker-prize winner over a weekend and be done with it. But here we are, in December, and I'm still trying to unravel parts of it. It is a novel that follows the six inhabitants of the International Space Station through a 24-hour day. Nothing happens. Nobody comes. Nobody goes. And yet, as they catch 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets in 90-minute orbits, something's always quietly happening. Our crew considers the world from the outside in; they stay trapped in each other's company; they miss home even though they're glad to be free of it; and they grapple with the news that...