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  1. The Innocent Man

    by John Grisham

    In the town of Ada, Oklahoma, Ron Williamson was going to be the next Mickey Mantle. But on his way to the Big Leagues, Ron stumbled, his dreams broken by drinking, drugs, and women. Then, on a winter night in 1982, not far from Ron’s home, a young cocktail waitress named Debra Sue Carter was... (learn more about this book)

  2. Discipline & Punish

    by Michel Foucault, Alan Sheridan

    In this brilliant work, the most influential philosopher since Sartre suggests that such vaunted reforms as the abolition of torture and the emergence of the modern penitentiary have merely shifted the focus of punishment from the prisoner's body to his soul.

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  3. The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956

    by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    Drawing on his own incarceration and exile, as well as on evidence from more than 200 fellow prisoners and Soviet archives, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn reveals the entire apparatus of Soviet repression -- the state within the state that ruled all-powerfully. Through truly Shakespearean... (learn more about this book)

  4. Couldn't Keep It to Myself

    by Wally Lamb

    In a stunning work of insight and hope, New York Times bestselling author Wally Lamb once again reveals his unmatched talent for finding humanity in the lost and lonely and celebrates the transforming power of the written word. For several years, Lamb has taught writing to a group of women... (learn more about this book)

  5. Orange Is the New Black

    by Piper Kerman

    A compelling, often hilarious, and unfailingly compassionate portrait of life inside a women's prison, by a Smith College graduate who did the crime and did the time.

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  6. Dead Man Walking

    by Helen Prejean

    In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean became the spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana's Angola State Prison. In the months before Sonnier's death, the Roman Catholic nun came to know a man who was as... (learn more about this book)

  7. The New Jim Crow

    by Michelle Alexander

    Jarvious Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton... (learn more about this book)

  8. A Prison Diary: Book 2

    Purgatory

    by Jeffrey Archer

    On August 9, 2001, 22 days after Archer--now known as Prisoner FF8282--was sentenced to four years in prison for perjury, he was transferred from a maximum security prison in London to HMP Wayland, a medium security prison in Norfolk. For the next 67 days, as he waited to be reclassified for... (learn more about this book)

  9. Alcatraz

    by Michael Esslinger

    Alcatraz - A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years is a comprehensive reference with hundreds of pages of historic photographs, documents, and information that breaks away from traditional tourist style books. This book is the result of years of intensive research, and navigates the... (learn more about this book)

  10. Running the Books

    by Avi Steinberg

    Avi Steinberg is stumped. After defecting from yeshiva to Harvard, he has only a senior thesis essay on Bugs Bunny to show for his effort. While his friends and classmates advance in the world, he remains stuck at a crossroads, unable to meet the lofty expectations of his Orthodox Jewish... (learn more about this book)

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