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.
Harvard's Walter Johnson on the slave South
The capitalist economy and dark dreams of the slaveholding South
A South African refugee crisis
An alumna recounts a refugee crisis in South Africa.
Self-Fashioning in Society and Solitude
On crafting a liberal-arts education by reading the classics and shaping one's life course
Helen Vendler's collaboration with Arion Press
The poetry critic, the publisher, and the art of bookmaking in a digital era
Arthur Rosenthal, longtime Harvard University Press Director, Has Died
His focus on publishing scholarly titles with broader, mass-market appeal helped put HUP back in the black.
Thoughts on critical reading from Reuben Brower’s “The Fields of Light”
An excerpt from Reuben Brower’s The Fields of Light: An Experiment in Critical Reading
Ilona Bell's Yard of Allusions
Ilona Bell's Yard of Allusions
Recent books on FDR, bioluminescence, ecorithms, intuition pumps, and more
Recent books with Harvard connections
“A Theory of Justice: The Musical!” and Harvard’s Class of 1944
A Theory of Justice as musical comedy, and the class of ’44
A correspondence corner for not-so-famous lost words
Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words