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January 11, 2005
Prison Reading
The Pryhills: Book Recommendation: Reader response requested
If you were to choose one book to send to a young person in prison who you care about, what would that book be?
As a bookseller, this is something that I deal with just about ever day. Some guidelines:
Make sure that whatever you send has glued-- not stitched-- binding. Stitched=weapon in the minds of prison guards. Hardback books are commonly stitched together. Stitched paperbacks are rare indeed-- I’ve only seen 1 in the 3.5 years I’ve been selling books. If you have any questions about book binding, show the book to a bookseller-- we’re trained to tell book types apart...
The guards have sole discretion to accept or reject anything. I once saw a paperback copy of a scrabble dictionary sent back. Commonly rejected items are pornography (duh), or even Maxim-style magazines. Also, anything involving weapons, violence, or anything a guard deems likely to get the prisoners all riled up...
Most bookstores are good about accepting returns if the books are shipped back. They _will_ ask your name/phone number, under the assumption that they’ll have to call you. We do not commonly refund the cost of shipping, however...
So, what do I recommend? The Christian Bible is a good place to start. It has _hundreds_ of different stories, and does offer moral instruction. I recommend a New Living Translation or New International Version, as these are the most readable for modern eyes...
Another thought might be (if you can find it in paperback) the complete works of Shakespeare. Again-- lots of stories, and they touch many just about every subject known to man...
Cosmos, as one of your readers mentioned, is not a bad idea. The biggest drawback, as I can see it, is that Cosmos contains only the one story, and is shorter than a stay at prison. Along those lines: A Brief History of Time (Hawking) might be a good idea...
If he has ever read S/F, I might recommend the first book of the Wheel of Time (Jordan). If he likes it, there are 9 more, and they average about 700 pages...
Posted by Andrew at January 11, 2005 11:19 AM
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Comments
For those not so brainy...
I recommend Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. It covers a variety of subjects, you can learn things from it, it's amusing, and good for those with short attention spans.
Pundit-man, you forgot to mention that sometimes if the guards like the reading material it simply might never make it to its intended recipient.
Requirements for what you may send will vary from prison to prison (Pundit-man provided very good general guidelines that all prisons I know of use), so if you are mailing something be sure to check with the prison in question first. Sometimes the bookstore will have to fill out some paperwork (that you've received from the prison and passed on to the bookstore) to send with the shipment.
(for any who read comments and don't already have an idea of who I am, I've been selling books for longer than Pundit-man.)
Posted by: Aurora at January 11, 2005 06:35 PM