Zócalo’s 2023 Summer Reading List Delivers Much-Needed R&R

Your Season of Rest and Reads Is Here, Courtesy of Our Friends and Contributors

This summer, we could all use a little R&R—rest and reads, that is. And while Zócalo can’t help you with the first part (though if we could send a beach your way, we would), we’ve got you covered for the latter with a favorite tradition: our annual summer reading list.

We spent the spring surveying Zócalo’s friends and contributors to learn what new (mostly) nonfiction books fed their minds and souls in 2023. They delivered, sending us an eclectic mix of works sure to nourish you—from coming-of-age journeys to global searches …

June 5, 2023

Los Angeles Will Always Be a Character in My Story

For Three Generations, a Writer’s Family Has Lived and Loved in the City of Angels

by Daniel Olivas | November 9, 2022

It took until the cusp of middle age—the ripe age of 39—for me to write what would become my first book.

The spark for this new stage of my life was …

Every Era’s Vampires Require New Blood

A Queer, Multiracial Adaptation of Anne Rice’s Seminal Novel Follows a 200-Year-Old Tradition

by Jackie Mansky | October 21, 2022

For all the puffy shirts, brooding glances, and implicit queerness of Interview with the Vampire, the blockbuster 1976 novel by the late Anne Rice that became the 1994 cult classic …

Zócalo’s 2022 Summer Reading List Charts New Waters

From Poets to Politicians, Our Friends Suggest Intellectual Travel Companions as We Set Sail for the Season

June 13, 2022

We at the good ship Zócalo are setting sail for another summer of intellectual exploration. As always, to aid us on this important voyage, we’ve recruited an intrepid crew of …

Why Do We Love ‘Choose-Your-Own-Adventure’ Stories?

From the I Ching to an Upcoming Netflix Romcom, Interactive Fiction Dares Us to Decide What Happens Next

by Jackie Mansky | April 29, 2022

The new Netflix original horror movie Choose or Die turns on an interactive computer game called “CURS>R,” which resembles a classic ’80s adventure program in which a user inputs text …

Where I Go: Afropalonia

Writer and Poet Rashaad Thomas Imagines 'a Planet Only for Black People'

by Rashaad Thomas | October 25, 2021

eath sits next to me, hip bones touching mine on a twin bed in the center of a revolving room in Arizona that’s progressively increasing in speed. Frequency numbers, lifeless …

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