Books & Literary Life

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

A whimsical illustration of a man balancing on a rooftop edge, wearing a suit and glasses.

The Artist Edward Gorey—and Pets—at Harvard

Winter exhibits at Houghton Library   

by Nell Porter-Brown

Anna Schwartz at U.S. Treasury Department 1982

Anna Jacobson Schwartz

Brief life of a pioneering economist: 1915-2012

by Jennifer Burns

Jarvis Givens and Clint Smith

Black Students Speak

Jarvis Givens on two centuries of African American education 

by Lydialyle Gibson

Illustration of housing outside a central city

State-Sponsored Discrimination

The role of zoing law and housing in making America more unequal—and what to do about it

Ben Purkert headshot

The Men Who Can’t Be Saved

Novelist Ben Purkert’s playfully serious look at masculinity

by Stuart Miller

Historic photo of camping in Yosemite National Park, 1915

Off the Shelf

Recent books on camping outdoors, economic opportunity, the women of NOW, and more

Illustration depicting blueprints of life, from a single cell to a whole human body

Life’s Blueprints

The development of developmental biology

by Jonathan Shaw

Stock photo, caring for patient in hospital bed

“Shotgun” Diagnosis

The virtues of inaction in delivering medical care

Portrait of editors Rebecca Panovka and Kiara Barrow

The New Little Magazines

Keeping literature and long-form journalism alive

by Nancy Walecki

sweeping aerial view of blue sky and Quabbin Reservoir water and mountains

Journey into Quabbin Reservoir’s Hidden Past

Rambling around the Quabbin Reservoir

by Nell Porter-Brown

Scroll depicting Commodore Perry’s 1853 invasion of Japan

Speaking Volumes

Glimpsing Harvard’s East Asian language materials collection

by Nell Porter-Brown