Around Harvard Square

By Christopher John Farley,

Book cover of Around Harvard Square

Book description

Race, class, and hormones combine and combust when a Harvard freshman and his two friends attempt to join the staff of the Harpoon, the school's iconic humor magazine.

Around Harvard Square is the winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Youth/Teens)!

Around Harvard Square has been named…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Around Harvard Square as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Speaking of outsiders, Around Harvard Square follows a superstar student-athlete from small-town USA who assumes he’s made it big when he’s admitted to Harvard University. However, as a young, Black man, Tosh Livingston soon discovers the ways in which he does not belong and finds that admissions committees aren’t the only gatekeepers. This novel really digs deep into issues of race and class, insiders and outsiders. And while the topics feel timely, they are also timeless—not only in the world at large but also in that microcosm, the campus. There have always been those who are kept out and always…

From Jeanne's list on campus novels for the 21st century.

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Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it…

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