Book Club: Read ‘Orbital,' by Samantha Harvey, With the Book Review
Welcome to the Book Review Book Club! Every month, we select a book to discuss with our readers. Sometimes that's a new book we're excited about and would love to introduce you to; other times, it's an older book that's back in the cultural spotlight. What do all of our selections have in common? They're great reads primed for robust, thoughtful conversations. Last month, we read 'Our Evenings,' by Alan Hollinghurst. (You can also go back and listen to our episodes on 'Small Things Like These,' 'James' and 'Intermezzo.')
I have a confession: I've never been that excited about space. It's not that I dislike it; I've just never been able to fully grasp it, with all its vastness and mystery. Intellectually, I recognize that it is fearsome and awe-inspiring, but emotionally, I've never felt it.
Until I read 'Orbital,' by Samantha Harvey.
The novel, which won the Booker Prize last year, has a tight, poetic frame: We follow one day in the lives of six people working on a space station above Earth, orbiting the planet 16 times every 24 hours. But this is not a saga of adventure or exploration. It's a quiet meditation on what it means to be human, prompted by a series of personal reckonings each character faces while floating 250 miles above their home.
Space unlocks something in these characters as they look back on the planet from orbit and reflect on life's difficulties — and witnessing that made me cherish Earth a little bit more and unlocked in me a deeper appreciation of the cosmos too.
I hope it'll unlock something in you, too. In February, the Book Review Book Club will read and discuss 'Orbital,' by Samantha Harvey. We'll be chatting about the book on the Book Review podcast that airs on Feb. 28, and we'd love for you to join the conversation. Share your thoughts about the novel in the comments section of this article by Feb. 17, and we may mention your observations in the episode.
Here's some related reading to get you started:
We can't wait to discuss the book with you. In the meantime, happy reading!
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Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
‘Flooding could end southern Appalachia': the scientists on an urgent mission to save lives
The abandoned homes and razed lots along the meandering Troublesome Creek in rural eastern Kentucky is a constant reminder of the 2022 catastrophic floods that killed dozens of people and displaced thousands more. Among the hardest hit was Fisty, a tiny community where eight homes, two shops and nine people including a woman who uses a wheelchair, her husband and two children, were swept away by the rising creek. Some residents dismissed cellphone alerts of potential flooding due to mistrust and warning fatigue, while for others it was already too late to escape. Landslides trapped the survivors and the deceased for several days. In response, geologists from the University of Kentucky secured a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and raced around collecting perishable data in hope of better understanding the worst flooding event to hit the region in a generation. On a recent morning in Fisty, Harold Baker sat smoking tobacco outside a new prefabricated home while his brother James worked on a car in a makeshift workshop. With no place else to go, the Baker family rebuilt the workshop on the same spot on Troublesome Creek with financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). 'I feel depressed. Everyone else is gone now. The days are long. It feels very lonely when the storms come in,' said Baker, 55, whose four dogs drowned in 2022. With so few people left, the car repair business is way down, the road eerily quiet. Since the flood that took everything, Harold and James patrol the river every time it rains. The vigilance helped avert another catastrophe on Valentine's Day after another so-called generational storm. No one died, but the trauma, like the river, came roaring back. Related: How bad will flooding get by 2100? These AI images show US destinations underwater 'I thought we were going to lose everything again. It was scary,' said Baker. At this spot in July 2022, geologist Ryan Thigpen found flood debris on top of two-storey buildings – 118in (3 metres) off the ground. The water mark on Harold's new trailer shows the February flood hit 23in. Troublesome Creek is a 40-mile narrow tributary of the north fork of the Kentucky River, which, like many waterways across southern Appalachia, does not have a single gauge. Yet these rural mountain hollows are getting slammed over and over by catastrophic flooding – and landslides – as the climate crisis increases rainfall across the region and warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico turbocharge storms. Two years after 45 people died in the 2022 floods, the scale of disaster grew with Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 230 people with almost half the deaths in Appalachia, after days of relentless rain turned calm streams into unstoppable torrents. Another 23 people died during the February 2025 rains, then 24 more in April during a four-day storm that climate scientists found was made significantly more likely and more severe by the warming planet. The extreme weather is making life unbearable and economically unviable for a chronically underserved region where coal was once king, and climate skepticism remains high. Yet little is known about flooding in the Appalachian region. It's why the geologists – also called earth scientists – got involved. 'This is where most people are going to die unless we create reliable warning systems and model future flood risks for mitigation and to help mountain communities plan for long-term resilience. Otherwise, these extreme flooding events could be the end of southern Appalachia,' said Thigpen. Amid accelerating climate breakdown, the urgency of the mission is clear. Yet this type of applied science could be derailed – or at least curtailed – by the unprecedented assault on science, scientists and federal agencies by Donald Trump and his billionaire donors. Danielle Baker, James's wife, had her bags packed a week in advance of the February flood and was glued to local television weather reports, which, like the geologists, rely on meteorological forecasting by the taxpayer-funded National Weather Service (NWS). She was 'scared to death' watching the creek rise so high again. But this time, the entire family, including 11 dogs and several cats, evacuated to the church on the hill, where they waited 26 hours for the water to subside. 'The people in this community are the best you could meet, but it's a ghost town now. I didn't want to rebuild so close to the creek, but we had nowhere else to go. Every time it rains, I can't sleep,' she said, wiping away tears with her shirt. Danielle was unaware of Trump's plans to dismantle Fema and slash funding from the NWS and NSF. 'A lot of people here would not know what to do without Fema's help. We need more information about the weather, better warnings, because the rains are getting worse,' she said. A day after the Guardian's visit in mid-May, an NWS office in eastern Kentucky scrambled to cover the overnight forecast as severe storms moved through the region, triggering multiple tornadoes that eventually killed 28 people. Hundreds of staff have left the NWS in recent months, through a combination of layoffs and buyouts at the behest of Trump mega-donor Elon Musk's so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge). It doesn't matter if people don't believe in climate change. It's going to wallop them anyway … This is a new world of extremes and cascading hazards Ryan Thigpen, geologist Yet statewide, two-thirds of Kentuckians voted for Trump last year, with his vote share closer to 80% in rural communities hit hard by extreme weather, where many still blame Barack Obama for coal mine closures. 'It doesn't matter if people don't believe in climate change. It's going to wallop them anyway. We need to think about watersheds differently. This is a new world of extremes and cascading hazards,' said Thigpen, the geologist. *** The rapidly changing climate is rendering the concept of once-in-a-generation floods, which is mostly based on research by hydrologists going back a hundred years or so, increasingly obsolete. Geologists, on the other hand, look back 10,000 years, which could help better understand flooding patterns when the planet was warmer. Thigpen is spearheading this close-knit group of earth scientists from the university's hazards team based in Lexington. On a recent field trip, nerdy jokes and constant teasing helped keep the mood light, but the scientists are clearly affected by the devastation they have witnessed since 2022. The team has so far documented more than 3,000 landslides triggered by that single extreme rain event, and are still counting. This work is part of a broader statewide push to increase climate resiliency and bolster economic growth using Kentucky-specific scientific research. Last year, the initiative got a major boost when the state secured $24m from the NSF for a five-year research project involving eight Kentucky institutions that has created dozens of science jobs and hundreds of new student opportunities. The grant helped pay for high-tech equipment – drones, radars, sensors and computers – the team needs to collect data and build models to improve hazard prediction and create real-time warning systems. After major storms, the team measures water levels and analyzes the sediment deposits left behind to calculate the scale and velocity of the flooding, which in turn helps calibrate the model. The models help better understand the impact of the topography and each community's built and natural environment – important for future mitigation. In these parts, coal was extracted using mountaintop mine removal, which drastically altered the landscape. Mining – and redirected waterways – can affect the height of a flood, according to a recent study by PhD student Meredith Swallom. A paleo-flood project is also under way, and another PhD student, Luciano Cardone, will soon begin digging into a section of the Kentucky riverbank to collect layers of sediment that holds physical clues on the date, size and velocity of ancient floods. Cardone, who found one local missionary's journal describing flooding in 1795, will provide a historical or geological perspective on catastrophic flooding in the region, which the team believe will help better predict future hazards under changing climatic conditions. All this data is analyzed at the new lab located in the Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) department, where super-powerful computers are positioned around a ceiling-to-floor black board, with a groovy lamp and artwork to get the creative mathematical juices flowing. So far the team has developed one working flood risk model for a single section of the Kentucky River. This will serve as a template, as each watershed requires its own model so that the data is manageable, precise and useful. This sort of applied science has the capacity to directly improve the lives of local people, including many Trump voters, as well as benefiting other mountainous flood-prone areas across the US and globally. But a flood warning system can only work if there is reliable meteorological forecasting going forward. The floods have made this a ghost town. I doubt it will survive another one. If you mess with Mother Nature, you lose Thomas Hutton of Kentucky Reports suggest NWS weather balloons, which assess storm risk by measuring wind speed, humidity, temperature and other conditions that satellites may not detect, have been canceled in recent weeks from Nebraska to Florida due to staff shortages. At the busiest time for storm predictions, deadly heatwaves and wildfires, weather service staffing is down by more than 10% and, for the first time in almost half a century, some forecasting offices no longer have 24/7 cover. Trump's team is also threatening to slash $1.52bn from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the weather service's parent agency, which also monitors climate trends, manages coastal ecosystems and supports international shipping, among other things. 'To build an effective and trusted warning system, we need hyper-local data, including accurate weather forecasts and a more robust network of gauges,' said Summer Brown, a senior lecturer at the University of Kentucky's earth and environmental sciences department. 'The thought of weakening our basic weather data is mind-boggling.' It's impossible not to worry about the cuts, especially as the grand plan is to create a southern Appalachian flood and hazard centre to better understand and prepare the entire region's mountain communities for extreme weather and related hazards, including flash floods, landslides and tornadoes. For this, the team is currently awaiting a multimillion-dollar grant decision from the NSF, in what until recently was a merit-based, peer-reviewed process at the federal agency. The NSF director resigned in April after orders from the White House to accept a 55% cut to the $9bn budget and fire half of the 1,700-person staff. Then, in an unprecedented move, a member of the governing body stepped down, lambasting Musk's unqualified Doge team for interfering in grant decisions. The days are long. It feels very lonely when the storms come in Harold Baker of Kentucky The NSF is the principal federal investor in basic science and engineering, and the proposed cut will be devastating in the US and globally. 'Rivers are different all over Appalachia, and if our research continues, we can build accurate flood and landslide models that help communities plan for storms in a changing climate,' said Jason Dortch, who set up the flood lab. 'We've submitted lots of great grant proposals, and while that is out of our hands, we will continue to push forwarded however we can.' *** Fleming-Neon is a former mining community in Letcher county with roughly 500 residents – a decline of almost 40% in the past two decades. The town was gutted by the 2022 storm, and only two businesses, a car repair shop and a florist, reopened. The launderette, pharmacy, dentist, clothing store and thrift shop were all abandoned. Randall and Bonnie Kincer, a local couple who have been married for 53 years, run the flower shop from an old movie theater on Main Street, which doubles up as a dance studio for elementary school children. The place was rammed with 120in of muddy water in 2022. In February, it was 52in, and everything still reeks of mould. The couple have been convinced by disinformation spread by conspiracy theorists that the recent catastrophic floods across the region, as well as Helene, were caused by inadequate river dredging and cloud seeding. The town's sorry plight, according to the Kincers, is down to deliberate manipulation of the weather system paid for by mining companies to flood out the community in order to gain access to lithium. (There are no significant lithium deposits in the area.) Bonnie, 74, is on the brink of giving up on the dance classes that she has taught since sophomore year, but not on Trump. 'I have total confidence in President Trump. The [federal] cuts will be tough for a little while but there's a lot of waste, so it will level out,' said Bonnie, who is angry about not qualifying for Fema assistance. 'We used all our life savings fixing the studio. But I cannot shovel any more mud, not even for the kids. I am done. I have PTSD. We are scared to death,' she said, breaking down in tears several times. The fear is understandable. On the slope facing the studio, a tiered retainer wall has been anchored into the hill to stabilize the earth and prevent an avalanche from destroying the town below. And at the edge of town, next to the power station on an old mine site, is a towering pile of black sludgy earth littered with lumps of shiny coal – the remnants of a massive landslide that happened as residents cleaned up after the February storm. Thomas Hutton's house was swamped with muddy water after the landslide blocked the creek, forcing it to temporarily change course towards a residential street. 'The floods have made this a ghost town. I doubt it will survive another one. If you mess with Mother Nature, you lose,' said Hutton, 74, a retired miner. The geologists fly drones fitted with Lidar (light detection and ranging): a remote sensing technology that uses pulsed lasers to create high-resolution, 3D, color models of the Earth's surface, and can shoot through trees and human-made structures to detect and monitor changes in terrain including landslides. The affordability and precision of the China-made Lidar has been a 'game changer' for landslides, but prices have recently rocketed thanks to Trump's tariff war. Related: Trump cuts will lead to more deaths in disasters, expert warns: 'It is really scary' The Lidar picked up fairly recent deforestation above the Fleming-Neon power plant, which likely further destabilized the earth. The team agrees that the landslide could keep moving, but without good soil data it's impossible to know when. Last year's NSF grant funded new soil and moisture sensors, as well as mini weather stations, which the landslide team is in the process of installing on 14 steep slopes in eastern Kentucky – the first time this has been done – including one opposite Hutton's house. Back at the lab, the geologists will use the data the sensors send back every 15 minutes to create models – and eventually a website where residents and local emergency managers can see how the soil moisture is changing in real time. The goal is to warn communities when there is a high landslide risk based on the soil saturation – and rain forecast. 'We have taken so many resources from these slopes. We need to understand them better,' said Sarah Johnson, a landslide expert. 'We're not sitting in an ivory tower making money from research. The work we do is about making communities safer.'
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
Safe and sound: Orange County's oldest music store reopens in Laguna
Wave Baker, a longtime employee of Sound Spectrum, will tell anyone who listens that the place has 'an energy of its own.' So when the Laguna Beach-based record shop, which opened on South Coast Highway in 1967, closed in October, Baker had a feeling it wasn't over. Whether it was more than a feeling, what happened next was more than he hoped for. A music-oriented family came forward with a bid, planning to revive the business and restore the building. James, Audrey and Sadie Jean Wilcox, siblings who grew up in the nearby city of Tustin, worked together to reopen Orange County's oldest music store. After spending more than two decades working under the original owners, Jimmy and Edith Otto, Baker was asked to remain on staff. 'In a sense, I'm a bridge from the old to the new,' Baker said. 'I met with them, and we got along, and they wanted my help. I said, 'Well, I come with one condition — my left and my right arm. Travis [Garman] and Niloo [Aghaseyedali] were part of the old, and now we're all three part of the new.' James, 28, recalled visiting Sound Spectrum during surfing trips to Laguna Beach. In December, when he learned the iconic record store had closed, he called Wave. Within a week, the family had submitted an offer that was accepted. 'At the end of the day, a record store sells music,' James said. 'The special thing about this store is that it has sold music for so many decades. It sold music through the vinyl era, through the cassette era, through the CD era, and then all the way back again. 'In my opinion, the special part about this store is that it's past trends. It doesn't need to sell off of these trends. It can just keep selling music that touches people's hearts.' As for the responsibility that goes with inheriting a legacy of 57 years of service to the community, James said that Jimmy Otto created a business that could stand on its own. 'Jimmy was very much someone who could stand on his own, and he made his store stand on its own,' he added. 'We hope to keep that same energy, really forever. We believe that this store is so sacred and special. The special thing about music is that it does last forever.' James also called it a 'special moment' to have the keys to Sound Spectrum passed on to his family by Edith Otto, who also gave them a tour of the store. Audrey, 30, who is due to be married this year, compared the commitment to preserve a community staple to a wedding. 'There's like this union,' Audrey said. 'I have this connection with the former owner. … I feel like the Sound Spectrum itself is like a being of its own. I feel less that I'm the one that's deciding what happens to it and more that I'm listening to what it needs, being more like a steward to what the store wants, listening to that and making it happen. That's been my biggest source of inspiration is just what … everyone needs.' The Wilcox family's music industry experience has been driven by a burgeoning career for Sadie Jean, 23, as a singer-songwriter. James and Audrey, both of whom have business backgrounds, have helped manage her career. She has nearly two dozen shows lined up in Europe this fall, and she's preparing to release her first album later this year. Sadie Jean revealed she has been writing songs from a young age, but she was unsure if her family would embrace that side of her. 'It was so funny because once I told people I could sing and write songs, my family was like my biggest champions,' Sadie Jean said. 'Now they manage me, and my siblings manage me. My career became like a really big family thing, and my parents go on tour with me. All of a sudden, we're like a music family after being so like not at all. 'I think it just made so much sense when we found out that the record store in our community that we love was about to be gone forever. It felt so serendipitous. It was like a calling that we had to take it on and save it because music is built into our family culture now.' The return of the record store was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday evening, music pumping as people perused the aisles stocked with selections of vinyl, CDs and posters spanning the decades. Local artists also collaborate, leading restorative efforts at the store. Amanda Burke touched up a mural by Bill Ogden, and a display by Brighid Burnes in the front window depicts musicians jamming away on various instruments. 'I saw many fathers or mothers say to their kid, 'I bought my first record here in the '80s,' Baker said. 'I want that little kid to be able to say that to their kids 30 years from now, long after I'm gone. I know the importance of that feeling. … That's what I want to keep. That's part of what I want to help survive.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Video: Millennial Mom Dances Through Milestones With Kids
Every mother's approach toward parenting differs depending on a bunch of factors, including but not limited to their experiences and culture. Nevertheless, one thing's certain: they bring their own styles and practices while raising their children. This makes each of their journeys different yet beautiful at the same time. A millennial mom is now going viral on Instagram for her entertaining and rocking approach toward motherhood in a video, documenting her dancing through milestones with her kids. The girls reciprocated her energy, making it twice as exciting. This Instagram video proved that you might never meet a millennial mom as cool as Emily Scott James, leaving her kids with interesting stories to tell. James pulled off a full dance routine for her twin daughters, finding their milestones through moves, music, and of course, Sean Paul. The moment showed how she turned the small things in life into something joyous to celebrate her girlhood and motherhood at one go. It showed signs of bonding without verbally communicating, marking small wins in their long journey, and a unique parenting style. In a subtext, the mother explained, 'POV: you're a millennial teaching your babies to clap.' She couldn't have opted for a better song as she likely herself grew up listening to the artist's popular track, which has been every 90s kid's jam for years. In the clip, her two little girls sat in their high chairs while she danced in front of them, clapping to the beats of the singer's massively hit song 'Temperature.' The twins reciprocated the same energy level and appeared ecstatic to watch their mom, who put her best effort to achieve the milestone. Moreover, viewers collectively agreed that the kids would be forever grateful for their millennial mom's electric dance moves in the video. One commenter remarked, 'Those dance moves HAVE to get them clapping.' The clip even showed how the twins could barely take their eyes off James, who went all out to execute the performance and got her babies clapping. With spiked energy levels, the duo sat in their chairs looking at their mother in complete awe and a lot of admiration. The post Video: Millennial Mom Dances Through Milestones With Kids appeared first on Momtastic.
