Book Club: Short Stack Book Club

Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Friday, 12/19/2025
3:00 - 4:00
Noe Valley Meeting Room
Noe Valley/Sally Brunn

451 Jersey Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
United States

415-355-5707

The Short Stack Book Club will meet the third Friday of the month to discuss short novels. This month’s selection is Orbital by Samantha Harvey. Orbital is an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in twenty-four hours. A slender novel of epic power, Orbital deftly snapshots a day in the lives of six women and men hurtling through space--not toward the moon or the vast unknown, but around our planet. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts--from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan--have left their lives behind to travel at warp speed as the earth reels below. We are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate. So are the marks of civilization far below, encrusted on the planet on which we live. 

Copies will be held at the circulation desk for check out. Drop-ins are welcomed.

Book Clubs

Read, discuss ideas and connect through the many book clubs hosted by SFPL.

This program is sponsored by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

Attending Programs

All programs are drop-in (no registration necessary) unless otherwise noted. All SFPL locations are wheelchair accessible. For accommodations (such as ASL), call (415) 557-4557 or contact accessibility@sfpl.org. Requesting at least 3 business days in advance will help ensure availability.

This program will be conducted in English unless otherwise noted.

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