Reviews

Reviews for Orbital

London Review of Books, 8th February 2024‘It’s hard to think of a book in which the lyrical impulse is so strongly and so successfully relied on. This is space aria rather than space opera, with the drama of getting into orbit fully displaced by the wonder of being there.’

The Boston Globe, 28th December 2023‘Samantha Harvey’s meditative novel portraying life aboard a spacecraft contains on almost every page sentences so gorgeous that you want to put down the book in awe. . . . a thrilling book, filled with marvel at the beauty of creation made palpable in bravura descriptions . . . the sense of wonder and delight conveyed by Harvey’s elegant prose and philosophical musings makes this a deeply pleasurable book for serious fiction lovers.’

The New Yorker, 18 December 2023 – ‘Samantha Harvey, one of the most consistently surprising contemporary British novelists, becomes something like the cosmic artificer of our era with her slim, enormous novel “Orbital” (Grove), which imaginatively constructs the day-to-day lives of six astronauts aboard the International Space Station. “Orbital” is the strangest and most magical of projects, not least because it’s barely what most people would call a novel but performs the kind of task that only a novel could dare.’

Los Angeles Times, 11 December 2023 – ‘Even at under 200 pages, “Orbital” is a complete novel, all the way to its conclusion. With a few tiny strokes of foreshadowing and a few lovely paragraphs of description, Harvey manages to bring readers back down to Earth, astounded that they’ve traveled so far in such a short period of time, having finished their own orbit through the realms of her rich imagination.’

The Scotsman, 8 December 2023‘Orbital is one of the most beautiful and poignant novels I have read this year.’

i., 7 December 2023‘If only everyone could read this slim marvel of a book.’

The New York Times, 5 December 2023‘Ravishingly beautiful. (T)hose transporting riffs, those fine rhapsodies! The novel’s refreshing view of Earth restores some of life’s original magic, calling to mind a third, unmentioned image — any one of last year’s Webb telescope photographs, which trounce despair by returning the stargazer to innocent spectacle. Sometimes, wonder and beauty suffice.’

The Sunday Telegraph, 21 November 2023‘(A) slim but affecting prose poem of a book.’

The Observer, 21 November 2023 – ‘Reading Orbital is a dizzying experience; she evokes the texture of daily life in the space station and pans out to sweeping, lyrical descriptions of the natural world, underpinning both with profound questions about our place in the cosmos. It is an extraordinary achievement, containing multitudes.’

The Guardian, 16 November 2023‘With this slender and stretchy fifth novel, Harvey makes an ecstatic voyage with an imagined crew on the International Space Station, and looks back to Earth with a lover’s eye.’

The Spectator, 11 November 2023‘A slender, gleaming novel. Harvey . . . invites us to step away from the choice between despair and hope for our future and embrace the creative potential of them together.’

Mail on Sunday, 5 November 2023 – ‘Harvey’s impressively researched, poetic novel carries a powerful ecological message. Above all, though, it’s a brilliantly imaginative account of life with the vastness of the cosmos just outside your window’

The Financial Times, 31 October 2023 – ‘In contrast to the bleak apocalyptic tone of much contemporary climate fiction, Orbital’s luminous descriptions remind us of the beauty at stake when humanity plays fast and loose with our single, and singular, blue marble.’

The Sunday Times, 29 October 2023‘Harvey moves unnervingly between the intimate and the epic . . . the beauty of the prose engages the reader fully.’

i, 4 November 2023 – ‘This genius novel transports us out to space… a short yet exquisite read.’ 

Reviews for The Western Wind

The Washington Times, 10th January, 2019

The Wall Street Journal, 17th December 2018

The Washington Post, 30th November 2018

The New York Times Book Review, 30th November 2018

The Spectator, 24th March 2018

The Financial Times, 9th March 2018

The Telegraph, 9th March 2018

The Express, 9th March 2018

The Guardian, 1st March 2018

The Observer, 25th February 2018

The Sunday Times – Interview with Patricia Nicol, 25th February 2018

The Bookseller, 1st December 2017

Reviews for Dear Thief

The Daily Beast, 29th December 2014

The Telegraph 5 Best Books of 2014, 20th December 2014

The Wall Street Journal, 12 December 2014

The New Yorker, 8th December 2014

The Guardian, 11th October 2014

The Telegraph, 14th October 2014

The Independent, 18th September 2014

The Sunday Times, 13th September 2014

The Daily Mail, 25th September 2014

Reviews for All Is Song:

The Independent

The Guardian

The Telegraph

The Independent

The Independent on Sunday

The Observer

The Sunday Times

The Scotsman

Evening Standard

Metro

Reviews for The Wilderness

The Observer, 7th February 2010; featured as Paperback of the Week

The Independent, 7th February 1010

The Sunday Times, 17 May 2009

The Observer, 5 April 2009

The Guardian, 28 February 2009

The Independent, 27 February 2009

The Financial Times, 23 February 2009

The Washington Post, 20 February 2009

The Evening Standard, 19 February 2009

The Book Forum, February/March

The New York Times, 12 February 2009

The Arts Show, RTE – radio interview, 10 February 2009

The Times, 31st January 2009