
The Booker Prize recognizes the best work of fiction published in English. This year's Booker Prize was awarded in London on November 12th to Samantha Harvey, the author of Orbital.
At 136 pages, this book is short enough to squeeze in before the end of the year, so go ahead and request it. Also included below are the books that were on the shortlist for 2024.
Book descriptions are from https://thebookerprizes.com
2024 Booker Prize Winner

Orbital
by Samantha Harvey
Six astronauts rotate in the International Space Station. They are there to do vital work, but slowly they begin to wonder: what is life without Earth? What is Earth without humanity?
Together
they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times,
spinning past continents, and cycling through seasons, taking in
glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans.
Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.
Yet
although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull.
News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts
of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and
people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its
destruction.
The fragility of human life fills their
conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have
never felt more part – or protective – of it.
2024 Shortlist

Held
by Anne Michaels
In a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence ignite and re-ignite as the century unfolds.
1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory – a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast – as the snow falls.
1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river – alive, but not still whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts whose messages he cannot understand.
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Creation Lake
by Rachel Kushner
A woman is caught in the crossfire between the past and the future in this part-spy novel, part-profound treatise on human history.
Sadie Smith – a 34-year-old American undercover agent of ruthless tactics, bold opinions and clean beauty – is sent by her mysterious but powerful employers to a remote corner of France. Her mission: to infiltrate a commune of radical eco-activists led by the charismatic svengali Bruno Lacombe.
Sadie casts her cynical eye over this region of ancient farms and sleepy villages, and at first finds Bruno’s idealism laughable – he lives in a Neanderthal cave and believes the path to enlightenment is a return to primitivism. But just as Sadie is certain she’s the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story.
A work of high art, high comedy, and irresistible pleasure, from the author of the Booker Prize-nominated The Mars Room.
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James by Percival Everett
by Percival Everett
A profound meditation on identity, belonging and the sacrifices we make to protect the ones we love, which reimagines Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
1861,
the Mississippi River. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about
to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife
and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island
until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own
death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. Thus
begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the
Mississippi River, toward the elusive promise of free states and beyond.
As James and Huck begin to navigate the treacherous waters, each bend
in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise.
With
rumours of a brewing war, James must face the burden he carries: the
family he is desperate to protect and the constant lie he must live, and
together, the unlikely pair must face the most dangerous odyssey of
them all…

The Safekeep
by Yael van der Wouden
An exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes – and the legacy of one of the 20th century’s greatest tragedies.
It’s 15 years since the Second World War and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the conflict is well and truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel’s life is as it should be: led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel’s doorstep-as a guest, there to stay for the season…
Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, wakes late, walks loudly through the house and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fuelled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house her suspicions spiral out of control. In the sweltering heat of summer, Isabel’s desperate desire for order transforms into infatuation – leading to a discovery that unravels all she has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva – nor the house – are what they seem.
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Stone Yard Devotional
by Charlotte Wood
The past comes knocking in Charlotte Wood’s fearless exploration of forgiveness, grief and female friendship.
Burnt
out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return
to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community
hidden away on the stark plains of New South Wales. She doesn’t believe
in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living a strange,
reclusive existence almost by accident.
But disquiet interrupts
this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse
plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation.
Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who
disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling
visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past…

About the Author
Katherine is the Digital Marketing, Collections, and Communications Specialist and has been working at EPL since 2008. She loves books, especially ones with unique plots and those written so well that she can't put them down.