fiction

Zócalo Answers One Big Question of Summer 2021: ‘What Should I Read?’

From Senator Alex Padilla to Philanthropist Tim Disney, Our Friends Share the Books They’re Diving Into

Zócalo Answers One Big Question of Summer 2021: ‘What Should I Read?’ | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

What will the summer of 2021 hold? Pods are out, but is wedding season in? Masks are no longer required outside, but when do we need them? We can hug our friends and family… right? At Zócalo, we don’t promise clear-cut answers, but we pride ourselves on asking smart people the right questions. So, as we do every summer, we turned to a group of friends and contributors—from a U.S. senator and a chancellor to a playwright, a materials scientist, and a designer—to recommend their favorite recent nonfiction books. They …

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In Venezuela, Dystopian Fiction Hits Close to Home | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

In Venezuela, Dystopian Fiction Hits Close to Home

J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise Shows What Happens When a Liberal Democracy Crumbles and Its Worst Vices Take Over

by José González Vargas |

There’s a certain absurdity that comes with trying to explain—in calm, simple, and objective words—a life that has become too strange to be real. At least, that’s how I feel …

Zócalo’s 2020 Summer Reading List Suits a Time Devoid of the Usual Escapes | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Zócalo’s 2020 Summer Reading List Suits a Time Devoid of the Usual Escapes

From Why We Started Calling Ourselves ‘America’ to Brains With a Mind of Their Own, These 15 Books Examine Essential Questions About Who We Are

We at Zócalo have always been contrarians when it comes to what constitutes a summer reading list. Our idea of a perfect “beach read” has never been your usual summer …

The Fictional Maps That Fill Us With Wonder

From Kerouac to Brontë, Writers Have Imagined Intricate Geographies

“Maps are like good books,” writes historian of exploration Huw Lewis-Jones. They “are transporting: filled with wonder, possibility, adventure. … They allow us to escape to another place whenever we …

From Paradise Lost to Harry Potter, Fanfiction Writers Reimagine the Classics

Though Derided by Critics as Copycat Art, It’s a Democratic Form of Crowdsourced Creativity

By Hilary Rhodes |

As Game of Thrones looks to its eighth season, the show—strictly speaking—is no longer filming the books of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Of course, it …

Were Mr. Darcy and Boo Radley Anti-Social Misfits—or Autistic?

How Fiction Can Reframe a Misunderstood Mental Condition

By Donna Levin |

Is autism cool?

It is in literature, as novels featuring characters on the autism spectrum have become so frequent that they’ve spawned a new genre: “autism lit,” or “aut lit.”

Many of …


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