Tuesday, November 12, was an exciting day—it was Oscars night for book nerds. That was the day the Booker Prize, the most prestigious literary prize in the world, was awarded. To anticipate and celebrate the award to the winning book, I gathered with 40 other book lovers from 15 countries for a virtual conversation before and after the award was presented in London. Before the award ceremony (livestreamed on YouTube), we met briefly to introduce ourselves and tell which book was our favorite to win the prize.
The event was planned by the Booker Prize Book Club, my favorite group on Facebook. For the last few months, I have often visited Facebook to check the latest book reviews and commentary on the books and authors nominated for the Booker Prize. I’ve also posted my own comments and short reviews on the books longlisted, and then shortlisted, for the Booker Prize.
The book that won the 2024 Booker Prize is Orbital by Samantha Harvey, an unusual novel about six astronauts from five countries orbiting the earth in a space station. The novel and its characters muse upon the nature of the earth, their connections to their colleagues and to their lives at home—and to the fragility of human life and of our environment. It’s a richly poetic and lyrical book. One of the book club members described Orbital as “humanity looking down on planet earth.”
After the awards ceremony, we returned to our Teams call, which I thought would be a brief discussion of the winner. The discussion went on for more than an hour.
The Booker Prize Book Club is a private group and you have to apply to become a member. It’s very large but I’d estimate that about 200 members are active—all lovers of literary fiction and committed to serious reviews and discussion about the virtues and imperfections of the Booker nominees and other highly regarded literary works. We certainly don’t always agree in our assessments of books and authors and sometimes the discussion is passionate—but always respectful. Kenneth (of northeast England) and Daniel (Texas USA) are informal leaders of the group. Kenneth set up the Tuesday Teams call and moderated it enthusiastically.
The follow-up discussion was lively and everyone was excited to meet and hear the people whose comments we’ve been reading for the last few months. Sebastian from Indonesia and Vanessa from Australia had to get up very early to be on the call. They were joined by ardent readers from Mexico City, Guatemala, Venezuela, Italy, Switzerland, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Canada, and several from the US (including Philadelphia, Denver, Texas, Connecticut and Chicago).
We all enjoyed the virtual discussion so much that we agreed we would meet again—for a book discussion in January and also to discuss other book awards, such as the International Booker Prize, which will be awarded in May.
The Booker Prize, established in 1969, is awarded for the best single work of fiction written in the English language, which was published in the United Kingdom and/or Ireland. (The International Booker is awarded to the finest single work of fiction from around the world that has been translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland.) You can see all the lists of winners and nominees since the Booker prize’s inception here.
The other five books shortlisted for this year’s award were:
James by Percival Everett (my personal favorite), Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner, Held by Anne Michaels, Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, and The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden. I’ve read all but The Safekeep, which I’m still waiting for the Chicago Public Library to get for me.
The next day, one of the members of my local book group sent this treat to our group, in honor of Orbital. The musician is Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut.
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