Books & Literary Life

Literary criticism, author interviews, and book culture from within and beyond Harvard.

Portrait of a man in a denim shirt beside a blue book cover for "Gretal and the Great War" featuring an illustration of a leg holding an army helmet..

How Adam Ehrlich Sachs Writes Absurd and Beautiful Fiction

The Gretel and the Great War author on how the Lampoon derailed his science career—and set him on a literary path.

by Eric Olson

A collage of emblematic figures in American history set against the Stars and Stripes

An intellectual history of the Cold War era

In a new book, Louis Menand probes the cultural currents of postwar America.

by Spencer Lee Lenfield

A Zoom screen shot shows guest speaker Isabel Wilkerson, interviewer Don Lemon, and Harvard professor David R. Williams

Isabel Wilkerson speaks at Harvard about racism storytelling and public health

Author Isabel Wilkerson kicks off a Harvard speaker series on storytelling and public health.

by Lydialyle Gibson

Portrait of Rachel Gable, author of new book on first-generation students at elite colleges

Timely guidance for colleges enrolling first-generation and low-income students

Rachel Gable’s research on helping first-generation and low-income students succeed at elite colleges

by John S. Rosenberg

An illustration by James Steinberg shows a heavenly hand extending down to the U.S. Capitol and attempting to influence members of Congress

Benjamin Friedman on faith and American socioeconomic policy

How faith shapes economic and social policy

Archival photograph of John F. Kennedy as an undergraduate, circa 1939, studying papers

Fredrik Logevall, “JFK: Coming of Age…” excerpt

An unusual senior thesis

Photograph of a giant cuttlefish, “Sepia apama,” at Cabbage Tree Bay, Australia: among Peter Godfrey-Smith’s subjects for his research on cognition

Recent books with Harvard connections

Recent books with Harvard connections

Portrait of Harvard Law School dean—and perfectionist—Ezra Thayer circa 1910, who found the school’s dire finances overwhelming.

Review of Kimball and Coquillette, “The Intellectual Sword,” by Lincoln Caplan

The making of the modern Harvard Law School

by Lincoln Caplan

David Roberts seated outdoors on a stone wall by the Charles River

Adventure writer Dave Roberts

David Roberts: A lifetime of adventures, risks, and rewards

by Nell Porter-Brown

Three people in 1950s New York

Robert Frank at the Addison Gallery, Andover, Massachusetts

“Robert Frank: The Americans,” at the Addison Gallery of American Art

by Nell Porter-Brown

Collage of Cover of Fevers, Feuds and Diamonds by Paul Farmer and a Headshot of Paul Farmer.

Paul Farmer on the West Africa Ebola Epidemic

The 2014 epidemic was rooted in centuries of exploitation and war, Paul Farmer argues.

by Jonathan Shaw