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 condemned inmate returns to his cell in the east block of death row at California’s San Quentin State Prison

The Supreme Court and Mass Incarceration

A legal scholar’s harsh assessment of the Supreme Court’s rulings on crime

by Lincoln Caplan

A person with long brown hair wears a sleeveless green dress with a kiwi fruit pattern, sitting in a vintage-style café.

Leslie Jamison on Isolation, Empathy, and Selfhood

The essayist on isolation, empathy, and selfhood

by Nina Pasquini

Supersonic test pilot Chuck Yeager

Essays from Edward Tenner

Essayist Edward Tenner on technology’s pitfalls

Bill Gates delivers comments at Harvard University, his memoir Source Code displayed

Bill Gates on AI and Innovation

At Harvard, the Microsoft co-founder discusses his biography—and artificial intelligence. 

by Olivia Farrar

Reginald Dwayne Betts speaks at Cambridge Public Library

Poet and lawyer Reginald Dwayne Betts on Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy

Poet and lawyer Reginald Dwayne Betts on Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy

by Lydialyle Gibson

Jimmy Carter and James Agee ’32

Why this “sovereign prince of the English language” touched the president’s heart

by Lincoln Caplan

Book cover for "When the Mapou sings" and a photograph of Nadine Pinede

History and Love in Haiti

Alumna Nadine Pinede’s young-adult novel—in verse

by Lydialyle Gibson

View of Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock framed by barbed wire, with the cityscape and hills in the distance.

The Ideology of Settler Colonialism and Israel-Palestine

A critical analysis of “settler colonialism”

Ancient ruins with tall columns and a blue sky in the background, at Hatra, Nineveh Province, Iraq

Recent Books with Harvard Connections January 2024

Recent books about Iraq, academic writing, John Singer Sargent, “eldercide,” and more

Werner Sollors seated on a couch with ornate wall designs in the background, wearing glasses and a dark sweater.

Redefining Race as Ethnicity

The expansive literary scholarship of Werner Sollors

by Christoph Irmscher