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

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 …

June 14, 2021

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 | October 19, 2020

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 …

The Fictional Maps That Fill Us With Wonder

From Kerouac to Brontë, Writers Have Imagined Intricate Geographies

March 5, 2019

“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 | September 15, 2017

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 | May 24, 2017

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 …

How Mermaids Became a Real Problem for Scientists

Discovery Channel “Documentaries” About Mythical Creatures Erode Public Trust in Science and Government

By Andrew David Thaler | October 27, 2016

“If NOAA is lying to us about the existence of mermaids then they’re definitely lying to us about climate change.”

It was August 2014 and I was flying home from the …

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