We are pleased to announce that Lesley Rains, former manager and buyer for the City of Asylum Bookstore and founder of the East End Book Exchange (now White Whale Books), has joined the University of Pittsburgh Press as Publicity Manager. “Lesley’s experience in front-line bookselling brings a real understanding of the importance of publicity to sell books in a competitive retail environment,” said Marketing Director John Fagan. Lesley will oversee all publicity efforts at the Press, including soliciting reviews, scheduling author events, and submitting books for a wide range of regional and national prizes. She will work with all Press…

Read Smarter is a reading challenge designed by University of Pittsburgh Press, Manchester University Press, MIT Press, Northwestern University Press, Syracuse University Press, University of Virginia Press, and Princeton University Press. Each month we will highlight one of the challenge prompts and provide suggested titles to help fulfill the prompts. Our first prompt for Read Smarter is “Read a book of regional fiction.” We’re defining “regional fiction” as any work of fiction focused on a specific region. You could choose a book set in your region, or a region halfway across the world, as long as it’s published by a university press….

November 3-9 is University Press Week. This year’s theme is “Read. Think. Act.” Our mission at the University of Pittsburgh Press is to find and publish the finest scholarly titles for just this reason: We want to encourage our readers to think critically about our titles and make changes in their lives, universities, and communities. This blog post by Patricia M. DeMarco, author of Pathways To Our Sustainable Future, offers a few ways anyone can take action to become a better environmental steward. Four Ways to Be a Better Environmental Steward Patricia M. DeMarco As creatures of modern life, we…

Ethel Spencer, the third daughter of the seven Spencer children born between 1884 and 1895, was a curious and observant child. She wrote her childhood memoir in 1959 while she was professor at Carnegie Tech (today’s Carnegie Mellon University). It served as a memento of the joy-filled years she shared with her brothers and sisters in Pittsburgh’s affluent Shadyside neighborhood. The Spencers of Amberson Avenue, later published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1983, explores the family of Charles Hart Spencer, an employee of Henry Clay Frick, and his wife Mary Acheson from the viewpoint of young Ethel. Through the eyes of Ethel, the reader is…

This Father’s Day let dad brush up on his Pittsburgh sports history with The Slide: Leyland, Bonds, and the Star-Crossed Pittsburgh Pirates by father-son writing duo Richard and Stephen Peterson and Chuck Noll: His Life’s Work by Michael MacCambridge. The Petersons trace Pirates baseball history from the 1970s to today, including the twenty-year bump along the road. MacCambridge gives life to the man who brought the Pittsburgh Steelers to the forefront of the National Football League, but removed himself from the spotlight. This is the first comprehensive biography of Chuck Noll.  With both books, you get a newfound understanding of the…