Books & Literary Life

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

From Appalachia to Harvard, a Woman’s Struggle to Find Herself

In her memoir All That's Unseen, Emilee Hackney explores religion, friendship, and home.

by Nina Pasquini , Nell Porter-Brown

Helen Vendler's collaboration with Arion Press

The poetry critic, the publisher, and the art of bookmaking in a digital era

by Nathan Heller

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

“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

“No Joke: Making Jewish Humor” by Ruth Wisse reviewed by Daniel Klein

Does in-group humor displace political action?

by Daniel Klein

Novelist André Aciman's Harvard Square explores expats' experiences

A café-goers' view of Cambridge, a generation ago

by Jesse Kornbluth