Books & Literary Life

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

These Harvard Mountaineers Braved Denali’s Wall of Ice

John Graham’s Denali Diary documents a dangerous and historic climb.

by Lydialyle Gibson

Colson Whitehead '91 wins 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

The Nickel Boys wins the 2020 prize for fiction.

Walter Johnson writes about “The Broken Heart of America”

Walter Johnson’s radical history of St. Louis

by Marina N. Bolotnikova

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Brief life of a breakthrough astronomer: 1900-1979

by Donovan Moore

Rebecca Henderson, “Reimagining Capitalism” to save the planet

The Business School’s Rebecca Henderson reimagines capitalism to save the planet.

Recent books with Harvard connections

Recent books with Harvard connections

Novelist Paul Yoon and “Run Me to Earth”

Novelist Paul Yoon explores Laos’s forgotten war.

by Bailey Trela

“The Equivalents,” by Maggie Doherty, reviewed by Susan Ware

From “women’s confinement” to “women’s liberation” at the Radcliffe Institute

by Susan Ware

A correspondence corner for not-so-famous lost words

A correspondence corner for not-so-famous lost words

“Tightrope,” by Kristof and WuDunn, reviewed by Allison Pugh

Americans diminished by “social poverty”

by Allison Pugh

David Barrett reports on New York City’s birds

A quest to chronicle New York City’s avian community

by Nell Porter-Brown