Books & Literary Life

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

Collage of book covers featuring various titles on a vibrant orange background.

America’s Past, Opera's Future: 11 New Books from Harvard Authors

These newly released novels, histories, and memoirs grapple with identity in all its forms.

by Gabriella Gage

A condemned inmate returns to his cell in the east block of death row at California’s San Quentin State Prison

The Supreme Court and Mass Incarceration

A legal scholar’s harsh assessment of the Supreme Court’s rulings on crime

by Lincoln Caplan

Detail from the middle panel of Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights”

Recent Publications Harvard Authors Spring 2025

Artmaking under duress, designing the UN HQ, Booker White’s blues, and more

A person with long brown hair wears a sleeveless green dress with a kiwi fruit pattern, sitting in a vintage-style café.

Leslie Jamison on Isolation, Empathy, and Selfhood

The essayist on isolation, empathy, and selfhood

by Nina Pasquini

Supersonic test pilot Chuck Yeager

Essays from Edward Tenner

Essayist Edward Tenner on technology’s pitfalls

Bill Gates delivers comments at Harvard University, his memoir Source Code displayed

Bill Gates on AI and Innovation

At Harvard, the Microsoft co-founder discusses his biography—and artificial intelligence. 

by Olivia Farrar

Reginald Dwayne Betts speaks at Cambridge Public Library

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

Book cover for "When the Mapou sings" and a photograph of Nadine Pinede

History and Love in Haiti

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

by Lydialyle Gibson

View of Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock framed by barbed wire, with the cityscape and hills in the distance.

The Ideology of Settler Colonialism and Israel-Palestine

A critical analysis of “settler colonialism”

Ancient ruins with tall columns and a blue sky in the background, at Hatra, Nineveh Province, Iraq

Recent Books with Harvard Connections January 2024

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