Books

NEW YORK — Something stopped Michael McDonald from telling his story publicly — him. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer with multiple Grammys just didn’t think he had one. McDonald, a member of both Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers who became a singular soul solo artist with such...

Nobel laureate Alice Munro, the Canadian literary giant who became one of the world’s most esteemed contemporary authors and one of history’s most honored short story writers, has died at age 92. A spokesperson for publisher Penguin Random House Canada said Munro, winner of the Nobel literary prize in 2013,...

The biggest challenge for an author tackling the history of the Situation Room, the basement room of the White House where some of the biggest intelligence crises have been handled in recent decades, is the room itself. As a setting, it’s pretty underwhelming. In “The Situation Room: The Inside Story...

Murrysville Community Library staff wants to give local authors a chance to connect with local readers, and will host its first-ever author fair next month. “At the end of our summer reading program last year, the one thing we got a lot of was requests for more literary events,” said...

Craving music? Good food? Some shopping? Don’t let the weekend go to waste. Here are a handful of fun things to do in Pittsburgh. Pittonkatonk Get ready to enjoy some free live music without boundaries. Starting at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Vietnam Veterans Pavilion in Schenley Park, Pittonkatonk is...

NEW YORK — Stories of race, slavery and the Civil War, real and invented, were winners this year for the Pulitzer Prizes. Jayne Anne Phillips’ “Night Watch,” a mother-daughter saga set in a West Virginia asylum right after the war, was cited for fiction. Jacqueline Jones received the history prize...

Brittney Griner continues to try to settle into a normal routine after being released from a Russian prison 17 months ago. Life isn’t what it once was for the perennial WNBA All-Star. The 6-foot-8 center looks different and has different priorities. Gone are her familiar dreadlocks that couldn’t be maintained...

Lovers of reading have a chance to celebrate their favorite booksellers — and get some fun giveaways in the process — with the nationwide Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday. Independent Bookstore Day, now in its 11th year, is an event conceived by the American Booksellers Association. Participating bookstores offer giveaways,...

Having a king as a godfather is pretty cool. Just ask India Hicks — hers is King Charles III, monarch of the United Kingdom. Hicks will be in Pittsburgh as the featured guest at the On Dec 2024 presentation and luncheon sponsored by the Women’s Committee of the Carnegie Museum...

NEW YORK — In Salman Rushdie’s first book since the 2022 stabbing that hospitalized him and left him blind in one eye, the author wastes no time reliving the day he thought might be his last. “At a quarter to eleven on August 12, 2022, on a sunny Friday morning...

University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg professor Liz Jones can still remember the first time she picked up a copy of Elie Wiesel’s memoir “Night,” at 12 years old. The book’s frank descriptions of the horrors of the Holocaust would stick with her for life. “It blew me away. I was...

Colter Harper’s book “Jazz in the Hill” explores the musical genre through the lens of conversation and community as a catalyst for change. Harper provides a direct look at the dialogue between musicians and listeners, as well as the connection between the community and its people. At a book release...

You’ve hailed a cab. No. 125 pulls up. In his book “Not a Bad Trip: A Pittsburgh Cab Story,” the driver will take you on some of the thousands of trips he has made throughout his career. Howard “Howie” Ehrlichman of Wilkins slid behind the wheel of a Checker Cab...

The Homer S. Brown Division of the Allegheny County Bar Association is celebrating its first children’s book, “Black Lawyers of the Burgh: An Anthology,” with the community on Saturday. The book, published earlier this month, profiles 28 local Black attorneys and judges and their career journeys. The theme for the...

Audre Lorde was born in New York City and was a prolific writer and poet whose work addressed the state of the world, confronted inequities, and brought to light the tossing aside of Black queer women. On Sunday, what would have been Lorde’s 90th birthday was celebrated at Carnegie Museum...

The rules of Silent Book Club are simple: No assigned reading, no homework and no small talk required. Members are expected to show up at a designated meeting place with whatever title they’re enjoying, sit and read. They can share thoughts if they want, but they don’t have to. The...

Scott Mason of Greensburg was spending his Saturday morning at the Greensburg Hempfield Area Library in Greensburg, reading a 1931 book on Revolutionary War hero Arthur St. Clair for an upcoming presentation before the Greensburg Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Mason relies upon the reference books in...

NEW YORK — One of the world’s largest and most influential publishers, Simon & Schuster, celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. To mark the centennial, the publisher has unveiled a list of 100 notable releases — a blend of bestsellers, prize winners, headline makers and cultural sensations. The list tells...

NEW YORK — N. Scott Momaday, a Pulitzer Prize-winning storyteller, poet, educator and folklorist whose debut novel “House Made of Dawn” is widely credited as the starting point for contemporary Native American literature, has died. He was 89. Momaday died Wednesday at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, publisher...

NEW YORK — A poetry collection, a coming-of-age novel and a history of deep sea exploration are unlikely to be found in the same section of your favorite bookstore. But they all have enough in common to be this year’s winners of Science + Literature awards, $10,000 prizes administered by...

WORCESTER, Mass. — The author of “Little Women” may have been even more productive and sensational than previously thought. Max Chapnick, a postdoctoral teaching associate at Northeastern University, believes he found about 20 stories and poems written by Louisa May Alcott under her own name as well as pseudonyms for...

Pennsylvania’s U.S. Sen. John Fetterman’s unconventional political career, along with his many personal battles, sounds like the stuff of Shakespeare. Now, it will be a book that the hoodie-wearing Democrat is planning to write, with the help of “Friday Night Lights” author Buzz Bissinger. All this is according to a...

A local comic book owner made an amazing find: Amazing Fantasy 15, the first appearance of Spider-Man and a rare gem in the comic world. Now, he’s selling it for $35,000. That price might be a bargain given the fair condition of the comic book. A pristine copy once sold...

It has been an overwhelming 12 months in the technology world. Rapid developments in artificial intelligence, which went into overdrive in late 2022 with the release of ChatGPT, have generated countless column inches, panel discussions and political debate. For those who want to contribute to the discourse, understanding the core...

NEW YORK — Book publishing in 2023 was a story of cooling sales and rising conflict, marked by legal action, protests, censorship and the impact of forces well beyond the industry. Print book sales continued to recede following the pandemic-era surge, but fiction remained strong, thanks in part to the...