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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

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

An illustration showing a human head in profile, suggesting the elements of distinctive Western psychology

Excerpt from “The WEIRDEST People in the World,” by Joseph Henrich

Reinterpreting the distinctive psychology of the human West

Photograph of author Justin Deabler

“Lone Stars”—an HLS grad’s semi-autobiographical debut novel

Fiction about “the power that comes to us when we uncloset ourselves”

by Lydialyle Gibson

Historic images of Francis Drake and Elizabeth I, who feature in a new book by Laurence Bergreen

Recent books with Harvard connections

Recent books with Harvard connections

Chapter & Verse

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Photo of a cheerleader group composed of elderly women, all in red tops and white skirts, with pompoms

“Some Kind of Heaven,” a documentary by Lance Oppenheim

Documentarian Lance Oppenheim explores life in The Villages.

by Alex Huls

Head and torso of a man painted by Michelangelo on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

A monumental book reveals a monumental work of art

Nicholas Callaway publishes the Sistine Chapel in closeup.

by Lydialyle Gibson

Historic photograph of heap of fabric scraps

Excerpt from “Shoddy,” by Hanna Rose Shell

“From Devil’s Dust to the Renaissance of Rags”—a surprising account of scrap

Shelby Meyerhoff's photographic self-portrait of her head and shoulders transformed with body paints into a blue-ringed octopus

Profile of body-paint artist Shelby Meyerhoff

Shelby Meyerhoff’s liminal, liberating body painting

by Lydialyle Gibson

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

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

An unusual senior thesis