I have been writing about imprisonment and other penal matters for several decades. Besides teaching, research, and publications, my career has involved the inspection of prisons in the US, UK, and Europe for several governments and for litigation across a range of issues. These are dark places, without a doubt, but seeing the lives that are lived within the walls by staff and prisoners alike has always captured and stimulated my interest and reinforced my belief in the enormous durability and adaptability of the human spirit. I have tried to communicate this in my writing and speaking.
By Seán McConville,
What should be done with those who come before the courts charged with a politically or conscientiously driven crime? Are they to be subject to the same degrading and stigmatizing punishment as the ordinary criminal? Such otherwise respectable offenders, for example, might include direct action (sometimes violent) campaigners for female suffrage, anti-vice journalists, overzealous imperialists, or religious dissidents.
In such ranks were to be found successive generations of Irish rebels and revolutionists. This book is their prison story as well as an exploration of the effects they had on the broader society and Anglo-Irish and American-Irish relations. It is full of politics, derring-do, atrocities, lies, truths, and characters of all hues, inspiring and depressing. The panorama is bestrewn with numerous uncomfortable reflections.
By James Blake,
James Blake’s book takes us from jail to long-term state imprisonment. In custody for thirteen years over a two-decade period, Blake sent perceptive, frank, witty, and sometimes heartbreaking letters out to friends, chronicling his experiences and reflections.
By James Blake,
1 author picked The Joint as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Victor Serge was too revolutionary for Bolshevik Russia and fled to France in the early part of the twentieth century. His lightly fictionalized account of French penitentiary life will not fail to make an impression–a pitiless and largely dispassionate picture of what was intended to be one of Europe’s most relentless penal experiences.
By Victor Serge,
1 author picked Men In Prison as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Startlingly human and unflinchingly honest, this thinly veiled fictionalized firsthand account of talented political writer Victor Serge’s time in prison is an important addition to the canon of prison writing as well as an unfiltered view of humanity in the early 20th century. Rejecting the opportunity to present political propaganda, Serge’s portrayal of imprisonment is instead an insightful and emotionally wrought tale of repression. The depraving brutality that Serge experienced behind bars is at once a mirror of a society at war and a deeply personal question of purpose. Originally published in 1930 and translated from the French by Richard…
Bar fights are among the more banal of crimes, but when murder results the criminal law justly responds with severity.
Under the pseudonym of "Zeno" the author (Gerald La Marque) gives an account of almost a decade in English prisons as an "ordinary" lifer. There is no self-pity, instead an acknowledgement of the justness of his punishment and a custodial life lived with stoical acceptance.
The book communicates with disturbing realism.
By Zeno,
1 author picked Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
No dust jacket but a very nice book, has former owner name inside cover but free of any other markings, clean and fresh.
It is difficult for a man or woman who has in the past dedicated themselves to a movement to offer an account which departs from or goes beyond the organization’s line: too big a slice of the heart and soul has been given away.
In his account of Irish Republican imprisonment–a great deal of it first hand–sometime hunger striker Laurence McKeown does not quite break out of the gravitational field of his politics. Continuing attachment to a cause is however sufficiently balanced by an instinctive independence to distinguish this memoir from the run of the mill party-liners.
Certainly well worth a read.
By Laurence McKeown,
1 author picked Out of Time as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Academic books about imprisonment proliferate and some have the irritating characteristic of running before the latest intellectual breezes. This book by Norval Morris is an unquestionable stand-alone and is an honest and engaging read.
Morris was one of a small number of authors in this field who had much practical experience of penal management, who shied away from easy answers, and who always wrote engagingly and with humane values. His output was as considerable as it was distinguished.
It remains relevant and, oddly for such a topic, uplifting.
By Norval Morris,
1 author picked The Future of Imprisonment as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Revised and expanded version of the Thomas M. Cooley lectures offered at the University of Michigan Law School in March 1974
By David Joiner,
New book alert!
My book recommendations reflect an abiding passion for Japanese literature, which has unquestionably influenced my own writing. My latest literary interest involves Japanese poetry—I’ve recently started a project that combines haiku and prose narration to describe my experiences as a part-time resident in a 1300-year-old Japanese hot spring town that Bashō helped make famous in The Narrow Road to the Deep North. But as a writer, my main focus remains novels. In late 2023 the second in a planned series of novels set in Ishikawa prefecture will be published. I currently live in Kanazawa, but have also been lucky to call Sapporo, Akita, Tokyo, and Fukui home at different times.
Emmitt’s plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of purchasing their dream home. Disappointed, he’s surprised to discover her subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo.
In his search for a meaningful life in Japan, and after quitting his job, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa’s most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English. He becomes drawn into the mysterious death of a friend of Mirai’s parents, leading him and his father-in-law to climb the mountain where the man died. There, he learns the somber truth and discovers what the future holds for him and his wife.
Packed with subtle literary allusion and closely observed nuance, Kanazawa reflects the mood of Japanese fiction in a fresh, modern incarnation.
By David Joiner,
In Kanazawa, the first literary novel in English to be set in this storied Japanese city, Emmitt's future plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of negotiations to purchase their dream home. Disappointed, he's surprised to discover Mirai's subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo, a city he dislikes.
Harmony is further disrupted when Emmitt's search for a more meaningful life in Japan leads him to quit an unsatisfying job at a local university. In the fallout, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa's most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English.
While continually resisting Mirai's…
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