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Three book covers displayed on a light background, featuring titles and authors.

Must-Read Harvard Books Winter 2025

From aphorisms to art heists to democracy’s necessary conditions 

by Gabriella Gage

A photograph of Zoe Sarnak performing on stage

Putting the Music in Musical Theater

Composer Zoe Sarnak’s warm-hearted songs

by Lydialyle Gibson

<i>Puck<i> magazine cartoon from 1895 lampooning the income tax

Off the shelf: Recent books with Harvard connections

Tax follies, Thomas Sowell, Donald Hall, and more

Photo of Bonnie Tsui standing on a pier

A Surfing Author’s Children’s Book

In the swim with Bonnie Tsui

by S.I. Rosenbaum

Johnson plays his harmonica with the Boston Pops orchestra behind him.

Singer, songwriter, harmonica player Scott Albert Johnson

Scott Albert Johnson finds his path.

by Jacob Sweet

Photograph of someone wearing a Juneteenth T-shirt

The Racial Tensions That Roiled Texas

Annette Gordon-Reed on the real history of Texas, and Juneteenth

Portrait photograph of Marilyn Booth

Arabic translator Marilyn Booth

Marilyn Booth translates Arabic literature for Anglophone readers.

by Spencer Lee Lenfield

Reproduction of Veronese’s “The Wedding Feast at Cana” (1563), the subject of a new book about art theft by Cynthia Saltzman

Recent books with Harvard connections

Recent books with Harvard connections

Photograph of a carved relief showing orator dictating to a scribe, from the fourth-century Roman Temple of Hercules at Ostia Antica

Secretaries’ role in history of information

From a huge new book on the history of information, an excerpt on the role of secretaries

Portrait photograph of Maggie Shipstead

Novelist Maggie Shipstead and “Great Circle”

Maggie Shipstead’s time-spanning, globe-circling new novel

by Dan Kelly

Photograph of earth scientist Andrew Knoll at work in the field

Andrew Knoll, “A Brief History of Earth,” reviewed by Jonathan Shaw

Andrew Knoll on the planet’s past—and fraught future

by Jonathan Shaw