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Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store is an independently run bookstore serving the greater Cambridge area. The bookstore is located in Harvard Square and has been family-owned since 1932. We are known for our extraordinary selection of new, used and remaindered books and for a history of innovation. In 2009, we introduced same-day "green delivery" and a book-making robot capable of printing and binding any of millions of titles in minutes. Find out more about us at www.harvard.com.

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Neil Swidey: Trapped Under The Sea

Wed, Feb 26, 2014

"The harrowing story of five men who were sent into a dark, airless, miles-long tunnel, hundreds of feet below the ocean, to do a nearly impossible job'with deadly results. A quarter-century ago, Boston had the dirtiest harbor in America. The city had been dumping sewage into it for generations, coating the seafloor with a layer of ""black mayonnaise."" Fisheries collapsed, wildlife fled, and locals referred to floating tampon applicators as ""beach whistles."" In the 1990s, work began on a state-of-the-art treatment plant and a 10-mile-long tunnel'its endpoint stretching farther from civilization than the earth's deepest ocean trench'to carry waste out of the harbor. With this impressive feat of engineering, Boston was poised to show the country how to rebound from environmental ruin. But when bad decisions and clashing corporations endangered the project, a team of commercial divers was sent on a perilous mission to rescue the stymied cleanup effort. Five divers went in; not all of them came out alive. Suspenseful yet humane, Trapped Under the Sea reminds us that behind every bridge, tower, and tunnel'behind the infrastructure that makes modern life possible'lies unsung bravery and extraordinary sacrifice."

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danah boyd: It’s Complicated - The Social Lives of Networked Teens

Tue, Feb 25, 2014

Social media scholar and youth advocate danah boyd discusses what is new about how teenagers communicate through services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and how social media affects the quality of teens' lives. In her new, eye-opening book, youth culture and technology expert danah boyd uncovers some of the major myths regarding teens' use of social media. She explores tropes about identity, privacy, safety, danger, and bullying. Ultimately, boyd argues that society fails young people when paternalism and protectionism hinder teenagers' ability to become informed, thoughtful, and engaged citizens through their online interactions. Yet despite an environment of rampant fear-mongering, boyd finds that teens often find ways to engage and to develop a sense of identity. Boyd's conclusions are essential reading not only for parents, teachers, and others who work with teens but also for anyone interested in the impact of emerging technologies on society, culture, and commerce in years to come. Offering insights gleaned from more than a decade of original fieldwork interviewing teenagers across the United States, boyd concludes reassuringly that the kids are all right. At the same time, she acknowledges that coming to terms with life in a networked era is not easy or obvious. In a technologically mediated world, life is bound to be complicated.

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Peniel Joseph: Stokely - A Life

Thu, Mar 6, 2014

"Harvard Book Store and the Hutchins Center are pleased to welcome award-winning author and Tufts University history professor Peniel Joseph for a discussion of his latest book, Stokely: A Life. Stokely Carmichael, the charismatic and controversial black activist, stepped onto the pages of history when he called for ""Black Power"" during a speech one Mississippi night in 1966. A firebrand who straddled both the American civil rights and Black Power movements, Carmichael would stand for the rest of his life at the center of the storm he had unleashed that night. In Stokely, preeminent civil rights scholar Peniel E. Joseph presents a groundbreaking biography of Carmichael, using his life as a prism through which to view the transformative African American freedom struggles of the twentieth century. During the heroic early years of the civil rights movement, Carmichael and other civil rights activists advocated nonviolent measures, leading sit-ins, demonstrations, and voter registration efforts in the South that culminated with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Still, Carmichael chafed at the slow progress of the civil rights movement and responded with Black Power, a movement that urged blacks to turn the rhetoric of freedom into a reality through whatever means necessary. Marked by the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., a wave of urban race riots, and the rise of the anti-war movement, the late 1960s heralded a dramatic shift in the tone of civil rights. Carmichael became the revolutionary icon for this new racial and political landscape, helping to organize the original Black Panther Party in Alabama and joining the iconic Black Panther Party for Self Defense that would galvanize frustrated African Americans and ignite a backlash among white Americans and the mainstream media. Yet at the age of twenty-seven, Carmichael made the abrupt decision to leave the United States, embracing a pan-African ideology and adopting the name of Kwame Ture, a move that baffled his supporters and made him something of an enigma until his death in 1998."

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Sarah Lewis: Rise

Tue, Apr 1, 2014

"Harvard Book Store welcomed curator and Yale faculty member Sarah Lewis for a discussion of her new book, The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery. The gift of failure is a riddle. Like the number zero, it will always be both a void and the start of infinite possibility. The Rise'a soulful celebration of the determination and courage of the human spirit'makes the case that many of our greatest triumphs come from understanding the importance of this mystery. The Rise explores the inestimable value of often ignored ideas'the power of surrender for fortitude, the criticality of play for innovation, the propulsion of the near win on the road to mastery, and the importance of grit and creative practice."

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Alan Lightman: The Accidental Universe - The World You Thought You Knew

Wed, Mar 19, 2014

"Harvard Book Store was pleased to welcome National Book Award finalist Alan Lightman for a discussion of his latest book, The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew. Alan Lightman brings a light touch to heavy questions. Here is a book about nesting ospreys, multiple universes, atheism, spiritualism, and the arrow of time. Throughout, Lightman takes us back and forth between ordinary occurrences'old shoes and entropy, sailing far out at sea and the infinite expanse of space."

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David Sibley: The Sibley Guide To Birds, 2nd Edition

Fri, Mar 14, 2014

"Harvard Book Store and Mass Audubon are pleased to welcome naturalist and bestselling author David Sibley, and Christopher Leahy, Gerard A. Bertrand Chair of Natural History and Field Ornithology at Mass Audubon, for a discussion of the second edition of The Sibley Guide to Birds. The publication of The Sibley Guide to Birds in 2000 quickly established David Allen Sibley as the author and illustrator of the nation's supreme and most comprehensive guide to birds. Used by millions of birders from novices to the most expert, The Sibley Guide became the standard by which natural history guides are measured."

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Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: Plato at the Googleplex - Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

Wed, Mar 12, 2014

"Harvard Book Store was pleased to welcome award-winning author and philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein for a reading of her latest book, Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away. Is philosophy obsolete? Are the ancient questions still relevant in the age of cosmology and neuroscience, not to mention crowd-sourcing and cable news? The acclaimed philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein provides a dazzlingly original plunge into the drama of philosophy, revealing its hidden role in today's debates on religion, morality, politics, and science."

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Bob Mankoff: How About Never - Is Never Good for You

Wed, Apr 9, 2014

Harvard Book Store and The Harvard Lampoon welcomed the cartoon editor from The New Yorker Bob Mankoff for a discussion of his book How About Never'Is Never Good for You?: My Life in Cartoons. People tell Bob Mankoff that as the cartoon editor of The New Yorker he has the best job in the world. Never one to beat around the bush, he explains to us, in the opening of this singular, delightfully eccentric book, that because he is also a cartoonist at the magazine he actually has two of the best jobs in the world. With the help of myriad images and his funniest, most beloved cartoons, he traces his love of the craft all the way back to his childhood, when he started doing funny drawings at the age of eight. After meeting his mother, we follow his unlikely stints as a high-school basketball star, draft dodger, and sociology grad student. Though Mankoff abandoned the study of psychology in the seventies to become a cartoonist, he recently realized that the field he abandoned could help him better understand the field he was in, and here he takes up the psychology of cartooning, analyzing why some cartoons make us laugh and others don't. He allows us into the hallowed halls of The New Yorker to show us the soup-to-nuts process of cartoon creation, giving us a detailed look not only at his own work, but that of the other talented cartoonists who keep us laughing week after week. For desert, he reveals the secrets to winning the magazine's caption contest. Throughout How About Never'Is Never Good for You?, we see his commitment to the motto ""Anything worth saying is worth saying funny." **This video has been edited for sound quality issues.

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Annalee Newitz: Scatter, Adapt, and Remember

Thu, Apr 10, 2014

"Harvard Book Store welcomes science journalist and editor of io9.com Annalee Newitz and contributing editor for Vanity Fair Seth Mnookin for a discussion of Newitz's new-to-paperback book Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction. As a species, Homo sapiens is at a crossroads. Study of our planet's turbulent past suggests that we are overdue for a catastrophic disaster, whether caused by nature or by human interference. It's a frightening prospect, as each of the Earth's past major disasters'from meteor strikes to bombardment by cosmic radiation'resulted in a mass extinction, where more than 75 percent of the planet's species died out. But in Scatter, Adapt, and Remember, Annalee Newitz explains that although global disaster is all but inevitable, our chances of long-term species survival are better than ever. Life on Earth has come close to annihilation'humans have, more than once, narrowly avoided extinction just during the last million years'but every single time a few creatures survived, evolving to adapt to the harshest of conditions. This speculative work of popular science focuses on humanity's long history of dodging the bullet, as well as on new threats that we may face in years to come. Most important, it explores how scientific breakthroughs today will help us avoid disasters tomorrow. From simulating tsunamis to studying central Turkey's ancient underground cities; from cultivating cyanobacteria for ""living cities"" to designing space elevators to make space colonies cost-effective; from using math to stop pandemics to studying the remarkable survival strategies of gray whales, scientists and researchers the world over are discovering the keys to long-term resilience and learning how humans can choose life over death."

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John Demos: The Heathen School

Thu, Apr 17, 2014

Harvard Book Store welcomed Yale professor and National Book Award finalist John Demos for a discussion of his book The Heathen School: A Story of Hope and Betrayal in the Age of the Early Republic in conversation with Megan Marshall, author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life. Near the start of the nineteenth century, as the newly established United States looked outward toward the wider world, a group of eminent Protestant ministers formed a grand scheme for gathering the rest of mankind into the redemptive fold of Christianity and "civilization." Its core element was a special school for "heathen youth" drawn from all parts of the earth, including the Pacific Islands, China, India, and, increasingly, the native nations of North America. If all went well, graduates would return to join similar projects in their respective homelands. For some years, the school prospered, indeed became quite famous. However, when two Cherokee students courted and married local women, public resolve 'and fundamental ideals' were put to a severe test. The Heathen School follows the progress, and the demise, of this first true melting pot through the lives of individual students: among them, Henry Obookiah, a young Hawaiian who ran away from home and worked as a seaman in the China Trade before ending up in New England; John Ridge, son of a powerful Cherokee chief and subsequently a leader in the process of Indian "removal"; and Elias Boudinot, editor of the first newspaper published by and for Native Americans. From its birth as a beacon of hope for universal "salvation," the heathen school descends into bitter controversy, as American racial attitudes harden and intensify. Instead of encouraging reconciliation, the school exposes the limits of tolerance and sets off a chain of events that will culminate tragically in the Trail of Tears.

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