Record of a Spaceborn Few

Becky Chambers just writes the warmest, most comforting books. Writing in her characteristic episodic manner, she shows us what life is like for the Exodans – humans who stayed on the generation ships originally built to go off in search of a new human homeland, but which have instead become the long-term homeland themselves.

My friend who recommended it to me said: “there's something so profoundly Jewish about it.” I think she's right (although I doubt that was Chambers' intention). This is a diaspora story about a people who leave their homeland with the plan to return to a new home shortly and instead spend generations in space, learning to redefine who they are as a community and culture and their relationship to physical spaces.