Books & Literary Life

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

Three climbers seated on a snowy summit, surrounded by clouds, appearing contemplative.

These Harvard Mountaineers Braved Denali’s Wall of Ice

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

by Lydialyle Gibson

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

Invaluable architectural archive published at last

by John S. Rosenberg

Edwin Frank sits with stacks of books in the background

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

An illustration envisioning a remade SAT test

Higher Education Reform and the SAT

Nicholas Lemann on revising standardized testing to address real educational needs

Richard Beck sitting indoors beside a potted plant, hands clasped, looking at the camera.

In 'Homeland,' n+1 writer Richard Beck excavates the War on Terror

How the War on Terror reshaped American life

by Nina Pasquini

A perfect match of poet and critic: Seamus Heaney and Helen Vendler at Sligo Town Hall for the Yeats International Summer School, 1987

The Friendship of Helen Vendler and Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney writes to Helen Vendler.

Jeanne Gang’s organic Gilder Center, grafted into the American Museum of Natural History

Fall Book Recommendations from Harvard Authors

Democratic organizing, “architectural grafting,” the Constitution, offshore wealth, and other new books

A black-and-white portrait of Tomi Adeyemi, alongside the covers of her novels "Children of Blood and Bone," "Children of Anguish and Anarchy," and "Children of Virtue and Vengeance."

Harvard Author Behind Afrofuturist Trilogy “Blood and Bone”

The reality-based fantasies of novelist Tomi Adeyemi

by Lydialyle Gibson

Brooklyn Bridge Park: the beach at Main Street Park, in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge

How Was Brooklyn Bridge Park Planned?

Michael Van Valkenburgh and the making of Brooklyn Bridge Park

Barry Van Dusen’s watercolor of an Eastern bluebird, as described. by Henry David Thoreau

Harvard Books on Monet, Free Time, Food, and More

Painting with Monet, birding with Thoreau, and other recent books

Corita Kent’s a man you can lean on (1966) plays with its medium: screenprints are not reversed in the making, but her image is.

Harvard Professor on Printmaking

An art historian analyzes an overlooked medium.

by Murray Whyte