Image credit: Victoria Ford / Penguin
From space to medieval England, to meditations on creativity and insomnia, the work of UK writer Samantha Harvey showcases remarkable depth and versatility. Her writing has been compared to that of Virginia Woolf , and fans of her books include Max Porter, Tessa Hadley and Mark Haddon . Harvey’s 2023 novel Orbital
Here is our guide to Harvey’s captivating writing, which explores profound themes such as identity, time, memory, existence, and the world around us with a uniquely lyrical and affecting style.
Samantha Harvey’s sixth book made headlines when it won the 2024 Booker Prize as the first winning novel to be set in space. A slim read, it is the perfect starting point for those new to Samantha Harvey’s writing. From the International Space Station, six astronauts circle Earth 16 times in a single day. They are there to carry out vital scientific research, but mostly they observe the incredible terrain and spectacles of their home planet. ‘I thought of it as a space pastoral – a kind of nature writing about the beauty of space,’ said Harvey in her Booker Prize acceptance speech.
If you loved Orbital then Harvey’s debut novel The Wilderness should be your next read. The story follows Jake, an architect in his 60s with Alzheimer’s, who begins to experience the key events of his life shifting as the disease takes hold, with once-solid memories melting into surreal imaginings. This novel received widespread acclaim, including being longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2009. Like all of Harvey’s writing, readers will enjoy her extraordinary power to convey the beauty of humanity from the first sentence to the very last.
Harvey’s fourth book, dubbed ‘a medieval whodunit’ byThe New York Times is the perfect pick for fans of Hamnet and historical fiction. Set in 1491, over the four holy days leading up to Ash Wednesday, The Western Wind is the story of a small village in Somerset rocked by the suspicious death of its wealthiest resident, and troubled by the presence of the regional dean as he investigates what happened. Through the voice of narrator Reve, a local Shepherd, Harvey creates a medieval world entirely tangible in its immediacy.
Harvey’s fifth book, a work of non-fiction, shows yet another side to her writing as she examines her personal struggle with insomnia. For a year, she grapples with chasing sleep, where extreme deprivation culminates in a raw, newfound clarity about life itself. Poetic, original and profound, The Shapeless Unease is a meditation on creativity, memory, writing, grief and the will to survive that will stay with you long after you’ve finished its 192 pages.
Fans of epistolary novels will be enraptured by Dear Thief, in which a woman sits down the night after Christmas and begins writing to her estranged friend, Butterfly. Night after night she continues to add to her letter, which increasingly uncovers the story of their friendship, a love triangle, and a betrayal that happened 15 years ago. The epistolary form of this book creates immediacy and intimacy, where time becomes elastic, emotions are raw, and the revelations make it impossible to put down.
Harvey’s second book is a powerful story about two brothers. Leonard, who is rootless after nursing his dying father and splitting from his partner, finds himself moving in with his distant brother William in the hopes of reconnecting with him. Married with three sons, William appears conventional, but he is running informal activist meetings with his former students – and when one of them follows his rhetoric to a literal conclusion and commits a serious crime, chaos ensues. If you love the idea of a domestic drama with a philosophical edge, All is Song is a must-read.
