Pittsburgh native donates prized literary collection

The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has a new book about spelunking, thanks to Marshall Cohen and his recent gift of more than 3,500 books.

The donation brings things full circle for Cohen, who recalled that a librarian at the Liberty School in Shadyside, where he grew up, once gave him a book about cave exploration.

“I remember thinking, ‘That’s interesting. What else do you have?’” Cohen said. “I never became a spelunker, but I did become a reader.”

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That encounter began a lifetime of visiting bookstores, enjoying writers’ lectures, meeting many authors and attending — and creating — book festivals.

Cohen’s explorations led to spending time in famed bookstores like Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C., and frequenting festivals in several cities, including New York, Boston and Miami.

He created the Greater Pittsburgh Book Festival in 2022, meant to celebrate and foster a love of reading across the community. The Carnegie Library became the festival’s presenting organization, rebranding it as the PGH Book Fest in 2025. It is held on the grounds of the library’s main campus in Oakland and has become an important signature cultural event in the region.

“I’m a reader,” Cohen told the Chronicle when he launched Pittsburgh’s book festival. “I don’t publish. I don’t book bind. I read.”

Reading, combined with his travels, gave Cohen the opportunity to meet many different authors.

“I met George Plimpton on Fifth Avenue in New York. That was just incredible. I had read all his books. That’s the kind of thing that got me into it,” he said about his passion for meeting authors and collecting books.

Over the years, Cohen has amassed a collection that would be the envy of bibliophiles around the world.

Included in the collection he recently donated to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh are signed first editions by Truman Capote (“One Christmas,” “In Cold Blood”), Arthur Miller (“Salesman in Beijing”), Kurt Vonnegut (“Player Piano”) and Winston Churchill (“Collected Works).

Other notable works include a complete first edition of Churchill’s “The Second World War” and a first edition of Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather,” as well as works by Salman Rushdie, Michael Connelly and Michael Chabon, who graduated from the University of Pittsburgh.

Cohen recently moved to Maine from the Steel City and was trying to decide what to do with the books he’s spent a lifetime collecting.

“They needed a permanent home, not my house,” he said.

Not surprisingly, the idea of donating his collection to a library came from another book.

“I was reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s last book about her life with Richard Goodwin,” he said. “It described their lives and that they donated their library to the Concord Free Public Library, and that’s when it clicked. I thought, that is the answer.”

Cohen’s decision to donate the books to the Carnegie Library was based on his relationship with library President & Director Andrew Medlar and the work the library has done to continue the book festival he created. The pair developed a relationship through their work with the PGH Book Fest.

The library, Medlar said, is “deeply grateful” to Cohen for “entrusting us with this incredible collection.”

“It’s a rare and inspiring gift,” he said, “one that not only enriches our literary community today, but will leave a lasting legacy for future generations of readers, researchers and book lovers in Pittsburgh.”

It is Cohen’s hope that people will continue to fall in love with books. Similar to the book festival he started, he said, the library performs an important service of connecting people to literature.

“Helping the library is important because it’s free, like the festival,” he said. “You can walk into the festival, meet and talk to an author and then go to the library and get the book. All of that is very important, especially for families with kids.”

Cohen made his gift in September during Love Your Library month, a time when the community celebrates the transformative role libraries play in people’s lives.

It is a role of which Cohen is acutely aware and something to which he’s glad to contribute.

“I’m proud to share this collection with a city and library system that nurtured my own love of reading from a young age,” he said. “In these times especially, reading and books are more critical than ever, and libraries are the core of that. We truly need to make America read again.” PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.