The Chicago Public Library is looking to outer space for this year’s citywide read. Samantha Harvey’s “Orbital” will be this year’s One Book, One Chicago selection, the library announced Wednesday.
The slim celestial novel won the 2024 Booker Prize (an annual literary award that goes to a single work of fiction published in the U.K. or Ireland). It was also among President Barack Obama’s favorite books that year.
The plot follows six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard a space station as they orbit the Earth 16 times in a single day. Their perspective gives them a new appreciation for both Earth below and their need for one another.
While Harvey, who is English, is not a Chicagoan and the book is not set here, Chicago Public Library Commissioner Chris Brown said the book is a reminder, in a divisive moment, of our shared humanity and what we have in common.
“There’s a lot happening globally. There’s a lot happening nationally, and we wanted a book that really could remind people of our shared commonality,” said Brown. “It’s that shared vantage point, that realization that we have more in common than we have differences.”
As the library’s annual program turns 25, this year’s One Book, One Chicago program will also feature a children’s book for the first time. That selection is Oliver Jeffers’ picture book, “Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth,” which will be featured in story times at branches across the city and available for parents to check out to read at home.
There is also a selection aimed at middle-grade readers, “The Lion of Mars” by author Jennifer L. Holm.
In total, Brown said the multiple selections around a single theme are an attempt to connect readers across all ages. “We’re wanting to make One Book, One Chicago an experience for all Chicagoans, thinking about our city intergenerationally,” Brown said.
The program began in 2001 with Harper Lee’s American classic “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In recent years, selections have included “Olga Dies Dreaming,” “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” and “There There.”
The book is selected by a committee of people, including library staff and representatives from local museums, universities and cultural organizations.
This year, the library system will partner with the Adler Planetarium on a series of events around the book. The lineup also includes showings of space-related films from “Apollo 13” to “Hidden Figures” and “Project Hail Mary” at various library branches throughout the fall.
Other planned programs include a silent reading soiree at the Harold Washington Library from 5-7 p.m. on Sept. 23 and a screening of the documentary “Operation Space Station,” followed by a community discussion, at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 8 at Harold Washington.
Harvey will appear virtually at a keynote event on Nov. 19, in conversation with Booklist magazine’s Editor, Donna Seaman.
Brown said the library’s goal is to take the experience beyond a shared read to real-world connections, “where you’re getting to be with other Chicagoans who are excited about the book and excited to experience themes outside and beyond the book.”
As part of the One Book program, the library system will have nearly 1,000 copies of “Orbital” in circulation, including copies in Chinese, Polish, Spanish and Korean.
In Harvey’s book, as the astronauts look down on Earth, they grapple with climate change and wonder, “Will robots take our jobs?” Just as in real life, the fictional astronauts are aware that their station — like the current iteration of the real-world International Space Station — is coming to an end. After more than 25 years of continuous human presence aboard the station, the ISS is set to be decommissioned in 2030.
The end of this era of space exploration is part of what motivated Harvey to write the book, she said in an interview for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s book club.
“I could see the peace project that is the ISS is coming to an end,” Harvey said. “For me, it was always a book that was about looking with some degree of nostalgia at the passing of that era, and the fact that we are moving into something quite different.”
While Harvey herself is not an astronaut, she writes with commanding authority about what it’s like to be cooped up in space for a long period of time with a group of people from around the world.
Brown said it’s that message of unity that he hopes resonates with Chicagoans.
“Chicago is such a diverse city. We have so many different vantage points, so many different lived experiences,” Brown said. “I think having a book where you can see these characters from different representative parts of the world, but have that shared kind of vantage point. I think there’s something that we can gain from that in Chicago.”
Courtney Kueppers is an arts and culture reporter at WBEZ.