The Book for Having an Existential Crisis

Or for making your current one feel smaller.

I have an existential crisis approximately every four weeks. A “what are we doing on this floating rock?” dizzying train of thought that usually ends with me disassociating and staring off into space.

There are a few ways it could start:

1. My husband asks me, “What are we doing on this floating rock?”

2. I start thinking too hard about how brief and simultaneously incredibly long our time on this earth is. And how could we be spending it sending follow-up messages on Slack?

3. I remember how small our existence on earth is, how small earth is in our galaxy, and how small our galaxy is in the entire universe. Is it good or bad to feel this unceremoniously small and insignificant?

All of these are great ways to have an existential crisis, but the way that it started this time was by reading Orbital. It’s both the perfect book to make your existential crisis feel smaller or give you an existential crisis if you weren’t already having one.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Orbital by Samantha Harvey is a 2024 Booker prize winner that follows a day in the life of six astronauts orbiting earth. Within each span of 24 hours, they’ll orbit the earth 16 times while transiting over a different section of the planet.

After DNFing so many books recently, I chose this one for its slim profile at just 224 pages.

This book put me inside of their spacecraft, staring down at various parts of the earth, struggling to sleep with the absence of gravity, floating in outer space while changing batteries on the exterior, looking down into space at a vast nothingness. If I wasn’t already afraid of heights and claustrophobic, I am now!

We matter greatly and not at all. To reach some pinnacle of human achievement only to discover that your achievements are next to nothing and that to understand this is the greatest achievement of any life, which itself is nothing, and also much more than everything. Some metal separates us from the void; death is so close. Life is everywhere, everywhere.

One of the astronauts reflected on how different her and her husband are. There are two people in this world: The type of people that would be thrilled to find out there’s a spaceship that could transport them to Mars, and the people who have no desire whatsoever to attend. I am the latter. It turns out a few celebrities are the former.

Things I loved about this book:

• The details of what astronauts endure while they’re up in space, both physically and mentally. Particularly their bodies not being able to recognize where their limbs are because there’s no gravity pulling on them to tell them where they are.

• The fun fact of how long it takes to reach outer space once you’ve launched from the earth. Probably because of the way it’s portrayed in movies, I assumed it was a quick rocket ride up into outer space. Of course it’s not! No, it takes like 7-8 hours at full-blast speed to leave earth’s atmosphere and reach their various destinations.

• The reminder that sometimes we need distance from the situation to reflect and figure out how we really feel. This book was an honest reflection on the beauty and imperfections of us humans down here on planet earth.

I took pictures of entire pages of this book because the tangents were so good.

More Books to Send You to the Stars

While I haven’t always been obsessed with space (the vastness of our galaxy alone makes my head spin), I’ve always been fascinated by astrology.

I’ve turned to several books over the past year to help me learn more about the signs in general, which helps me better understand my own birth chart. You Were Born for This by Chani Nicholas, This Is Your Destiny by Aliza Kelly, and Astro Poets by Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky are a few of my favorites.

I plan to gather even more astrological knowledge this year so I can continue to drop annoying observations like “you’re a Cancer sun and moon, of course you’re a spiritual lightning rod,” and “I’ve accepted that I’m a slow-mover, I’m a Taurus,” and “Mars has stationed direct, all my motivation has returned.”

A few I want to read this year to help me do this are Planets in Transit by Robert Hand, The Astrological Body Types by Judith Hill, Mystery of the Mazzaroth by Tim Warner, Archetypes of the Zodiac by Kathleen Burt, and this one by Princess Diana’s personal astrologer.

And if you’re still on a kick about space, For the Love of Mars by Matthew Shindell might be your pick.

Other Things I’m Reading

• Where do our favorite writers find their inspiration? A rare book dealer investigates the women writers Jane Austen loved to read.

• Being listed on a celebrity’s book club used to rocket you to the top of bestseller lists. Is that still the case? Industry insiders weigh in here.

• A hot topic lately, book clubs are getting an edgy makeover…

Books I Added to My TBR List

• Binti by Nnedi Okorafor: Binti is the first of her people to be offered a spot at the galaxy’s top university, but is it worth it to give up her ability to travel between the stars and put herself in the center of a war she did not start?

• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton: A stunning work of fiction that transports us back to the 70s creative scene in New York City where a young rock duo navigate racist acts from a rival band signed to the same label

• Black Flora by Teresa Speight: A beautiful showcase of profiles of Black florists, designers, and growers who are innovating the world of flowers

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