Since 2011, Z\u00f3calo Public Square has awarded our annual book prize to the U.S.-published nonfiction book that best enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion.<\/p>\n
Our hometown, Los Angeles, is a place where the traffic, sprawl, pace, and expense can make connection feel elusive. This past year has tested our commitment to one another and to this place further, first through the devastating fires and then through the federal government\u2019s attacks on our neighbors. As L.A. comes together to heal, the book prize, and Z\u00f3calo\u2019s commitment to building community in our city, feel particularly meaningful. We are grateful to screenwriter and philanthropist Tim Disney for supporting L.A. and Z\u00f3calo by once again sponsoring our literary prize program, which also includes the\u00a0Z\u00f3calo Public Square Poetry Prize<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 2026 Z\u00f3calo Book Prize selection committee consists of 2025 Z\u00f3calo Book Prize winner and\u00a0The New Breadline\u00a0author\u00a0Jean-Martin Bauer, journalist Charles Fleming, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace climate mobility scholar Liliana Gamboa, ASU Mechanics of Democracy Laboratory director and Z\u00f3calo Advisory Board member Bill Gates, Skirball Cultural Center president and CEO Jessie Kornberg, Texas Tribune CEO Sonal Shah, and USC sociologist Jody Agius Vallejo.<\/p>\n The author of the winning book will receive $10,000 and participate in a public program in Los Angeles in spring 2026. We will also recognize the authors of the books we select for our shortlist. For more information about the prize, please contact us at\u00a0bookprize@zocalopublicsquare.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n The deadline to submit is October 10, 2025, at 11:59 PM PDT. Books must be published in the U.S. between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2025, to be eligible. Please send a single copy of any book nominated for the prize, along with a submission letter containing publisher or author contact information and publication date to:<\/p>\n ASU California Center Broadway The 15 previous Z\u00f3calo Public Square Book Prize recipients represent the breadth of expertise and experience we seek in our submissions. They study and write about famine and friendship, economics and immigration, and a variety of countries and time periods. They are:<\/p>\n \u2022 Jean-Martin Bauer<\/a> for The New Breadline: Hunger and Hope in the 21st Century (Knopf)
Attn: Z\u00f3calo Public Square, Book Prize
919 S. Grand Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90015<\/p>\n
\u2022 H\u00e9ctor Tobar<\/a> for Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of \u201cLatino\u201d (MCD\/Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
\u2022 Michelle Wilde Anderson<\/a> for\u00a0The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America\u00a0(Avid Reader Press\/Simon & Schuster)
\u2022\u00a0Heather McGhee<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together\u00a0(One World)
\u2022\u00a0Jia Lynn Yang<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965\u00a0(W. W. Norton & Company)
\u2022\u00a0William Sturkey<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Hattiesburg: An American City in Black and White\u00a0(Belknap\/Harvard University Press)
\u2022\u00a0Omer Bartov<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz\u00a0(Simon & Schuster)
\u2022\u00a0Michael Ignatieff<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World\u00a0(Harvard University Press)
\u2022\u00a0Mitchell Duneier<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea\u00a0(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
\u2022\u00a0Sherry Turkle<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age\u00a0(Penguin Press)
\u2022\u00a0Danielle Allen<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality\u00a0(Liveright Publishing)
\u2022\u00a0Ethan Zuckerman<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection\u00a0(W. W. Norton & Company)
\u2022\u00a0Jonathan Haidt<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion(Pantheon)
\u2022\u00a0Richard Sennett<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation\u00a0(Yale University Press)
\u2022\u00a0Peter Lovenheim<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0In the Neighborhood: The Search for Community on an American Street, One Sleepover at a Time\u00a0(Perigee Books)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since 2011, Z\u00f3calo Public Square has awarded our annual book prize to the U.S.-published nonfiction book that best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[11842,489,156,111,139,69,11843],"class_list":{"0":"post-9369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-book-prize","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-zocalo-book-prize"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}