This May the Pittsburgh Review of Books is excited to announce, in partnership with media sponsor White Whale Bookstore, our inaugural Summer Non-Beach Read Club dedicated to parsing historically significant but difficult long novels.
Over the course of May, June, July, and August, participants are asked to join us in tackling (Pittsburgh-born) seminal Modernist Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans and encouraged to pick up a copy from White Whale. Newly rereleased by independent publisher Dalkey Archive, our guide to the 1925 experimental masterpiece will be Cecilia Konchar Farr, Professor of English at West Liberty University and coauthor with Janie Sisson of As I Was Saying: A Companion to Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans, also published by Dalkey Archive.
Over the summer we’ll feature monthly essays from scholars and readers about their interpretations of Stein and their experience with The Making of Americans. Our club will kick off on May 7th, 2026, 7PM at White Whale where Dr. Farr and Janie Sisson will read from their new book and you’ll have an opportunity to pick up a copy of Stein’s novel. Over the course of our reading, you’re encouraged to send any missives, experiences, or potential contributions to PRoB to the editor at esimon@andrew.cmu.edu. A schedule of our reading, with easily digestible increments of 15 pages a day, is below:
Read Along
About 15 pages a day through mid-August
May 11 3-36
[The Dehnings and the Herslands]
May 18 36-163
[The Hersland Parents]
May 25 164-212
[Mrs. Hersland and the Hersland Children]
June 1 212-314
(Servant Girl Being)
June 8 317-419
Martha Herland
June 15 421-524
(Mrs. Redfern)
June 22 Catch up Week
(Kinds of being)
June 29 525-659
and July 6
Alfred Hersland and Julia Dehning
July 13 660-741
(Kinds of loving)
July 20 742-793
(A dead one)
July 27 795-905
David Hersland
August 3 905-1001
(Living and dying)
August 10 1001-1022
History of a Family’s Progress
August 17
Celebration
