“Weird” was only intended as a placeholder. When Weird Tales magazine debuted in 1923, the adjective in the title meant the same thing it means in

According to Adriana E. Ramirez’s recent memoir, The Violence: My Family’s Colombian War, the country’s patrimony is violence; the nation’s history very like

One summer day in 2015, I fell in love twice. I was not usually fickle, but always susceptible to paintings of the southwestern Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

I’ve read a lot of Mary Roach’s books. And whether the topic is sex, death, or wildlife, you always know you’re in for an experience.

When I think of the great Shakespearean roles for women who would be a challenge and a joy to perform, complex characters like Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra,

I

My heroes are leaving. The giants are leaving us. It's hard not to feel this way. It's hard not to take it personally, even though death is the way of the

If I hadn’t been so hellbent on learning how to play the intro to “Stairway to Heaven,” I would have grabbed my first secondhand guitar by the neck and

George Saunders will be appearing at Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures as part of the "Ten Evening Series" at the Carnegie Music Hall on September 14th, 2026 at

This essay was originally published at Benjamin Dreyer's Substack "A Word About..."

Perhaps the most anticipated collection of the year by an American poet isn’t yet available to Americans. The Poems of Sylvia Plath (Faber & Faber, 944pp,

The Pittsburgh Review of Books is excited to announce the inaugural season for a new program of public engagement to be run by the magazine that will be known

What is there left to say about Dolly Parton? About her stupendous talent. About her remarkable philanthropy that should put all of the billionaires and

Among the most innovative aspects of The Pittsburgh Review of Books when compared to similar publications, oftentimes the very ones that inspired this

“In the matter of fans,” the Gotham Book Mart proclaimed in 1940, “you can only compare with a moving-picture star in Hollywood.” Even taking into

Over this summer PRoB will be featuring the work of upcoming readers that will be appearing at Pittsburgh’s venerable Hemingway’s Poetry Series, now

The Pittsburgh Review of Books will be taken a one-month break in anticipation of the fall semester. When we return on August 31st, we'll begin publishing not

For most Americans, the term “patriotism” can be succinctly defined by the kinds of things that happen each 4th of July (and will even more symbolically still

Who can lay claim to being an American? A common view holds that one born in the United States of America, or one who comes to live in the country,

‘Long ago in 1945, all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions.’ So begins Muriel Spark’s 1963 novel, the slim and elegantly savage The

Editor's Note: Acclaimed writer and Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh Marcus Rediker has long informally circulated

Yolŋu women trek for kilometres atop the network of buttress roots anchoring the mangrove forest in the sweet black mud. There is a rhythm to the mud which a

Introducing the Distinction

Object Lessons Impressions are 500-word essayettes on the hidden lives of ordinary things, published in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Review of Books. Recalling the brief run of Mini Object Lesson...

Over this summer PRoB will be featuring the work of upcoming readers that will be appearing at Pittsburgh’s venerable Hemingway’s Poetry Series, now

Every day, we scroll through Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms, encountering a stream of images paired with captions and comments that

Author Willy Vlautin experiences a recurring problem in his novel drafting process. Because it seems fun, he often takes a sharp turn that upends the draft

In June of 2020, I arrived at a secret address in Chicago with what remained of my belongings and no money in my bank account, a newly minted statistic among

For most Americans, the term “patriotism” can be succinctly defined by the kinds of things that happen each 4th of July (and will even more symbolically still

Over this summer PRoB will be featuring the work of upcoming readers that will be appearing at Pittsburgh’s venerable Hemingway’s Poetry Series, now

Many things in the world have not been named openly; and many things, even if they are admitted, have never been described. One is the unsung sensibility – a

In this guide, Lesley Rains takes us on a tour of the best independent bookshops in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

It looked like something lifted from the set of a zombie film. Grizzled hands extending skyward, as if firing from the depths of hell, frozen in some sort of

On June 5, 2026, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an article in a genre that has unfortunately become all too familiar in that venue titled “Has

When Marjane Satrapi, the author of the best-selling graphic memoir, Persepolis, was six years old, she believed she had been chosen by God to be the next

Over this summer PRoB will be featuring the work of upcoming readers that will be appearing at Pittsburgh’s venerable Hemingway’s Poetry Series, now

What I learned.

In an unfamiliar city, I rarely walk into an empty restaurant. How good could the food be if nobody eats there? At least a crowded restaurant's one that many

The following essay is being published in conjunction with the "(In)hospitable Space Conference" which explores the human dimensions of space exploration and

This commencement address was delivered to the graduating English majors at the University of California, Berkely on May 20th, 2026. Thank you to Viet Thanh

For the most part I often feel very small, tucked into a minor corner of the universe, hoping to find something solid to hook myself onto, a small piece of

The events surrounding its appearance at the Tübingen seminary in the 1780s and 90s tell us most of what is important to know about Kantian philosophy as an