Where I Go: Reading Among Readers

In India, Weekly Reading Clubs Offer a Sense of Community and Belonging

I entered the Lodhi Gardens through Gate 1, as I’d been instructed, and approached the monument. A city park spread over 90 acres in New Delhi, the gardens contain the tombs of medieval rulers of the Delhi Sultanate and today serve as a popular destination for walking and hanging out. I found myself facing a tomb with a dome on top, with people ranging in age from university students to those in their early 30s sprawled all around. Some reclined on mats; others simply lay on the grass. Everyone was …

This Summer, Let’s Screw Book Bans

We Can Use Censorship as an Opportunity to Get People Reading—and Romancing

Ban this column! Please!

It might seem strange to call for the cancellation of one’s own newspaper column. Besides, who needs to squelch such a piece when media audiences are declining …

Where I Go: The Garden Library I Grow | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: The Garden Library I Grow

Before I Plant, I Curl up With My Favorite Ecologists, Journalists, and Victorian Naturalists

My gardening habit was born on the day my mother died. Grief-stricken beyond belief, and thinking that her boundless spirit might linger still in the sun-loving plants she had long …

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 …

Does Philosophy Hold Crucial Insights for the Neuroscience of Inspiration?

How Charles Taylor's Exploration of Language is Shedding Light on the Link Between Reading and Big Ideas

In a passage in Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert wrote one of history’s most beautiful descriptions of language: “Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat crude rhythms …

The 10 Best Books We Read This Year

Zócalo Anoints These 2014 Nonfiction Titles Instant Classics

Why bother reading new books when there are too many great classics for one person to finish in a lifetime? Because people keep writing new classics. Zócalo’s top 10 nonfiction …