Books & Literary Life

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

Being Undocumented in America

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s writing aims to challenge assumptions. 

by Nina Pasquini

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

History and Love in Haiti

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

by Lydialyle Gibson

The Ideology of Settler Colonialism and Israel-Palestine

A critical analysis of “settler colonialism”

Recent Books with Harvard Connections January 2024

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

Redefining Race as Ethnicity

The expansive literary scholarship of Werner Sollors

by Christoph Irmscher

Recent Books with Harvard Connections: November-December 2024

Books about the art and science of eating, on being Zen, helping youngsters grow up, and more

Henry Hobson Richardson: Architect of Harvard's Iconic Austin and Sever Halls

Invaluable architectural archive published at last

by John S. Rosenberg

Edwin Frank Explores the 20th-Century Novel in 'Stranger Than Fiction'

A book about books—and the protagonist is the twentieth-century novel itself.

by Lydialyle Gibson

Higher Education Reform and the SAT

Nicholas Lemann on revising standardized testing to address real educational needs