Books & Literary Life

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

Book cover featuring vibrant underwater plants and coral with the title "Under Water" by Tara Menon.

Tara Menon’s Debut Novel Combines Friendship, Grief, and Climate Disaster

The popular Harvard English professor published Under Water this spring.

by Andrés Muedano

A Mughal baby jacket, masterful textile work

Off the Shelf

Recent books with Harvard connections

Disagreeing Well

Harvard debater Bo Seo writes about productive differences of opinion.

Illustration of students and challenges in college today

Aiming for Excellence

New books by Harvard experts on college preparation, rankings, student experiences, and institutional strategies

by John S. Rosenberg

Wendy Lesser standing happily among her books

Wendy Lesser's "Threepenny Review:

The revered literary magazine editor discusses the writing (and reading) life.

by Lydialyle Gibson

Book cover for Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South

The 2022 Pulitzer Prizes

Erin Kelly and Salamishah Tillet honored for “searing” and “stylish” writing in biography and criticism

by Lydialyle Gibson

The seven 2022 Harvard Horzions scholars

Harvard Horizons Spotlights Seven Scholars

Ph.D. students discuss subjects from aliens to infrastructural aesthetics.

by Jacob Sweet

Photograph of pioneering Wexner Center for the Arts

Architectural Upheaval

A comprehensive examination of avant-garde architecture

Off the Shelf

Recent books with Harvard connections

British soldiers and local police searching homes to interrogate subjects during Mau May rebellion, c. 1954

Realities of Empire

A new history indicts the British imperium.

Illustration depicting social fissures during pandemic by tearing of the U.S. Constitution

The Broken Social Contract

Danielle Allen on America’s broken social contract