Each year as I put together some suggestions for Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers, I look to see if there’s some underlying theme or idea. What seems to unite my choices this year is the glimpses that they offer into worlds that are hidden or largely unseen. And in doing so, each in its own way provides a revelatory window into the mysterious and grace-filled experience of being alive. When astronauts return to Earth, they regularly speak of the profound consolation of the experience of being able to look upon the planet as a whole, how so many of the issues that consume us, the differences of border, nationality or religion, are wiped away in favor of a deep sense of our shared humanity. In her new novel “Orbital,” which won the 2024 Booker Prize, Samantha Harvey gives us a chance to experience that for ourselves by following the six-person crew of the space station as they make 16 orbits of the planet over the course of a single day. While there is a certain amount of plot to the story, what Harvey offers more than anything is a deepening sense of wonder and awe, not only through what she describes but the manner in which she describes it. To float in microgravity is to be “a seabird on a warm day drifting.” A cluster of islands seen from above seem “a trail of drying footprints.” And humanity, from the point of view of the astronauts, “is a creature that comes out only at night. Mankind is the light of cities and the illuminated filament of roads. By day, it’s gone. It hides in plain sight.” A remarkable literary achievement that moved me over and over again. A book I can’t stop telling people to read.