I have been involved with teaching in prison for the last 22 years, and have taught everything from creative writing to meditation to college classes across carceral facilities in New York, California, and Massachusetts. As the founder and director of the Emerson Prison Initiative at Emerson College’s campus at Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, I constantly work with faculty and students who are navigating the teaching and learning environment under some of the most adverse circumstances. These books have helped me feel less alone in this work.
There has been a gap in the literature of books speaking to what it actually means to teach students in prison, and Ginsburg’s book contributes to filling it. Through careful curation, Ginsburg’s edited volume is a highly useful resource for anyone considering teaching in prison, or looking for reading to reflect on teaching that has already taken place.
This volume makes a case for engaging critical approaches for teaching adults in prison higher education (or "college-in-prison") programs. This book not only contextualizes pedagogy within the specialized and growing niche of prison instruction, but also addresses prison abolition, reentry, and educational equity. Chapters are written by prison instructors, currently incarcerated students, and formerly incarcerated students, providing a variety of perspectives on the many roadblocks and ambitions of teaching and learning in carceral settings. All unapologetic advocates of increasing access to higher education for people in prison, contributors discuss the high stakes of teaching incarcerated individuals and address the dynamics,…
I have always been fascinated by the dark side of human nature and the socio-psychological aspects of criminal behavior, especially those of serial killers, and my legal training and experience afforded me apt tools for exploring and writing about true crime. I have been interviewed and appeared on a wide range of podcasts, radio, and TV shows about true crime for nearly a decade.
This book explores the relationship between writer and subject and provides a lesson on the lengths one should go in exercising one’s craft. An ironic twist comes in the form of Finkel himself being a victim of a crime, which gives rise to the thrust of this story. As a fan of memoirs and true crime, this book kept my interest all of the way through.
Michael Finkel was a top New York Times Magazine journalist publicly fired and disgraced for making up a composite character for a big investigative news piece about Africa. This book is about how this brilliant, high achieving journalist found himself at that point in his life. But in parallel it's also about Christian Longo, a man accused of the multiple murder of his own wife and three children.
After the deaths, Longo fled to Mexico, where he passed himself off as Michael Finkel, New York Times journalist. These two weird stories come together as Finkel in turn becomes fascinated (perhaps…
I love a book that pulls you into the story, one where maybe you see yourself in the characters. As a boy, I loved to read and would lose myself in books. I find I am drawn to many different types and genres, but especially military or crime dramas. My favorites include historical references and in my own writing I often place characters in an actual historical event, but with a fictional outcome. The most important thing to me is creating a character who is interesting enough to make the reader want more. My personal military experiences were used to begin my first novel while the characters came to life.
I am a sucker for war-time love stories, and the tragedy of this one is it is true. An exceptional piece of writing about courage and love, set in the middle of the most heinous, horrific events of modern history. A simple, crumpled note passed between strangers through a barbed wire fence begins weaving a true tale, a love story rivaling that of Romeo and Juliet.
'An unforgettable love story set in perilous times' Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz
The greatest love blossoms in the darkest hour.
In the heart of Nazi-occupied Europe, two people meet fleetingly in a chance encounter. One is an underground resistance fighter; the other a prisoner of war. A crumpled note passes between these two strangers and sets them on a course that will change their lives forever.
The Note Through the Wire is the stunning true story of Josefine Lobnik, a resistance heroine, and Bruce Murray, an imprisoned soldier, as they discover love in the midst of…
Jay Geller is a professor of history and Judaic studies and has published five books on the experience of the Jews in twentieth-century Germany. He has worked with secondary school teachers, religious communities, and museums to develop programs on the Holocaust, Nazism, and dangers of intolerance and radicalism. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale University.
There are very few German novels about Nazi persecution written at the time it was taking place, but the Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers is among the very best. (Another is The Oppermanns by Lion Feuchtwanger, which shows the experience of a single, affluent German-Jewish family.) Seghers narrates the story of George Heisler, a communist who escapes from a concentration camp along with six other men. Can he reach freedom across the border before the manhunt catches up with him? Will anyone hide him or help him in a society wracked by fear, where friends no longer meet and strangers do not trust each other?
'At once a suspenseful manhunt story and a knowing portrait of the perils of ordinary life in Hitler's Germany, The Seventh Cross is not only an important novel, but an important historical document. This new, unabridged translation is a genuine publishing event' - Joseph Kanon, author of 'The Good German' and 'Leaving Berlin'
'A masterpiece. Written in the midst of terror, but with such clarity, such acuity; Seghers is a writer of rare insight' RACHEL SEIFFERT author of A Boy in Winter
Seven prisoners escape from Westhofen concentration camp. Seven crosses are erected in the grounds and the commandant vows…
A Chicago writer, I've always been drawn to quirky books. My first novel, The Prospect of My Arrival, was a finalist in Amazon's novel contest and centers on a human embryo that is allowed to preview the world. My current work-in-progress is nonfiction. The Invention of Fireflies is a memoir of the magical and monstrous moments of my life. Varied day jobs have included being a professional cuddler, web designer, and caregiver. Affirmative Entertainment represents me for possible movie/TV projects. My work was selected for inclusion in the HBO New Writers Project, The Norton Introduction to Literature, many textbooks, and anthologies.
Murakami's world is magic realist by default. It's often infused with American pop culture, jazz, secret passageways, and curious cats. The Strange Library is a perfect introduction to the author's world and it makes a nice gift. The book is adorned with pop illustrations and highly saturated colors. In this short novel a lonely boy, a mysterious girl, and a tormented sheep/man plot their escape from a nightmarish library. I have read the author's 1Q84 opus of 1,000 pages but it is his short works -- his short stories and novellas -- that have stayed with me the most.
Fully illustrated and beautifully designed, this is a unique and wonderfully creepy tale that is sure to delight Murakami fans.
'All I did was go to the library to borrow some books'.
On his way home from school, the young narrator of The Strange Library finds himself wondering how taxes were collected in the Ottoman Empire. He pops into the local library to see if it has a book on the subject. This is his first mistake.
Led to a special 'reading room' in a maze under the library by a strange old man, he finds himself imprisoned with only…
I’ve always been curious and passionate about how people overcame significant suffering in their lives. True stories of how people emerged stronger from traumatic events not only became an inspiration in my personal life but also my professional life as a therapist, where I became an agent of change. The ‘secret’ of these storytellers and their transformation became my focus. I only hope you find these stories as enjoyable as I did and also a challenge and an inspiration that makes a difference in your own life.
The author held me spellbound as she skilfully unpacked the remarkable story of Louis Zamperini, who survived a plane crash at sea only to be taken prisoner by the Japanese.
Zamperini’s life leapt from the page and swept me along a chilling pathway that bore witness to his physical and inner strength. Hillenbrand held me riveted to the last page of this remarkable true story.
From the author of the bestselling and much-loved Seabiscuit, an unforgettable story of one man's journey into extremity. On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane's bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War. The lieutenant's name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood,…
As a writer and journalist in Iran, I knew many activists and journalists who spent time in solitary confinement. I noticed that this part of their prison experience was the hardest one for them to put to words, even those keen on sharing their experiences have a much easier time talking about the interrogation room but remain strangely reticent about the solitary cell. When I set out to write a novel about a bus driver who ends up in jail, I decided to dedicate several chapters of the book to his time in solitary confinement. That research sent me down the rabbit hole of interviewing former prisoners and reading widely about the solitary experience.
After the news came out that Norman Mailer was writing a book about the life of Gary Gilmore, which came to be his magnum opus, The Executioner’s Song, he received a letter from a convict named Jack Henry Abbott. An avid reader of philosophy and literature who was also serving a life sentence, Abbott wrote to warn the renowned author against misapprehending American prisons and to teach him how to write about the violence of incarceration. The two men exchanged long, detailed letters. Eventually, Mailer collected Abbott’s letters in this book. In his letters, in a tone both detached and lyrical, Abbott writes unforgettably about what spending long years in prison does to one’s soul and body. In my view, the letter on solitary confinement is the finest and most harrowing chapter of this book.
A collection of letters by a federal prisoner provides a candid look at life in prison, revealing his background, politics, and views on parole, rehabilitation, and capital punishment
My training is in Classics (especially Greek drama), which has given me an appreciation for clever writers who tweak conventional themes to surprise readers, foil expectations, and explore new ideas—or new sides of old ideas. Greek epic and tragedy also exhibit fairly rigid expectations about personal responsibility: even if a god made you do it, it’s still your responsibility. Agamemnon has to pay for sacrificing his daughter; Heracles has to perform his labors. Madness and possession are vivid ways to explore where one’s autonomy leaves off and another power takes over. They’re excellent tools for poking at humans to see how a thinking, feeling individual deals with unintended disaster.
The brand of possession is fairly standard: a Drakhaoul possesses a man, enabling him to transform into a dragon—but the man must replenish his strength vampirically.
I like the interplay of personal responsibility and victimization, the use of supernatural powers to protect one’s friends at the cost of innocent suffering.
The Drakhaoul has a name and personality; it’s definitely a discrete being, but it’s also a part of the hero.
But then the hero successfully exorcises his demon.
But the demon’s memories are left behind, and the hero starts to wonder if he’s going mad.
The demon’s absence, not its presence, drives the hero to madness and despair (even though he hates the demon).
The hero simultaneously hates and longs for a dark power, which is and is not uniquely his.
A weaver of tales, a caster of spells, and a writer of rare imagination, Sarah Ash lends her unique vision to epic fantasy. In this captivating continuation to her story, the author of Lord of Snow and Shadows revisits a realm filled with spirits and singers, daemons and kings.
Gavril Nagarian has finally cast out the dragon-daemon from deep within himself. The Drakhaoul is gone—and with it all of Gavril’s fearsome powers. Though no longer besieged by the Drakhaoul’s unnatural lusts and desires, Gavril has betrayed his birthright and his people. He has put the ice-bound princedom of Azhkendir at…
I love the thrill of the chase and have always been passionate about the dramatic. In school, I was always the evil sorceress in plays. Later, as a professional actress, I sought dramatic roles or outrageously funny characters. Psychological thrillers fulfill the need to make my world more dramatic than it actually is. I call good thrillers “fudge reading.” Because having them in my life is like pigging out on the best fudge you can find, now, as a writer of psychological thrillers, I try and give my readers a roller coaster ride on daring topics just the way these five writers have inspired me to do.
I feel that Freida McFadden is hands down the queen of the gripping psychological thriller. The bottom line rule for a thriller is you feel compelled to turn the page and keep reading! By chapter three, the plot is lined up. I loved how the author kept you guessing who the bad guy was!
The main character comes back to her hometown as a nurse practitioner in a prison to a house she inherited because her parents were killed in an auto accident. She has a ten-year-old son from a mistake teenage pregnancy. The inmate, in this case, is the guy she slept with in high school. He was convicted of a murder she testified he committed. I couldn’t stop reading at this point because the red flags were waving over who really committed the crime. Written in the first person, I was captured by the personal story of someone…
A gripping, twisty thriller from Freida McFadden, the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Housemaid and The Coworker!
The guiltiest people aren't always the ones behind bars...
As a new nurse practitioner at a maximum-security prison, Brooke Sullivan is taught three crucial rules:
Treat all prisoners with respect.
Never reveal any personal information.
Never EVER become too friendly with the inmates.
But nobody knows that Brooke has already broken the rules. Nobody knows about her intimate connection to Shane Nelson, one of the penitentiary's most notorious and dangerous inmates.
They certainly don't know that Shane was Brooke's high school sweetheart-the…
I’ve now written four books, of which three are Australian history. My first two books were World War 2 military history. My publishers persist in calling each book a best-seller, and who am I to disagree? I live in France and my third book A Good Place To Hide is about a French community that rescued Jews from the Nazis. My fourth book Ten Rogues took me back to Australian history, telling the story of a bunch of ten convicts who in 1834 nicked a brig and sailed it from Tasmania to Chile without a map or a compass.
Tom is an old mate, and a magician with words. He is also a prodigious researcher. Books: yes. The bibliography in The Commonwealth of Thieves runs to seven tight-packed pages, divided between primary sources (three pages) and secondary sources. The bibliography is underpinned by no fewer than 27 pages of notes. The Australian history I was taught at school was hogwash. Tom has set it straight in this brilliantly researched and off-the-wall history of our early days.
In this spirited history of the remarkable first four years of the convict settlement of Australia, Thomas Keneally offers us a human view of a fascinating piece of history. Combining the authority of a renowned historian with a brilliant narrative flair, Keneally gives us an inside view of this unprecedented experiment from the perspective of the new colony’s governor, Arthur Phillips. Using personal journals and documents, Keneally re-creates the hellish overseas voyage and the challenges Phillips faced upon arrival: unruly convicts, disgruntled officers, bewildered and hostile natives, food shortages, and disease. He also offers captivating portrayals of Aborigines and of…
