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robotswithpersonality's review against another edition
Reading this confirms that prison, being imprisoned, is a separate world. Trying to relate to that experience is difficult, as much as the author is unflinching with the details. [If I never read anything ever again with this level of human excrement mentions I'll be happy]. In this separate world, how can I fairly judge any actions the author took? There are passages that seem to suggest his experiences and maybe his base line beliefs/personality have made him too casual with language and perspectives that are offensive to me. Yet there are moments of enlightened thinking, there is the clear eyed acknowledgement of wrong doing without excuses. I did not expect the work to be more a reporting of various aspects of prisons and prison life, more than a study of the individual's interiority, as the author states in a last page addendum on chronology, "these pages are a distillation of what I had to learn about prisons, not an account of the travels of..." The books are less an after thought than a result of situations outlined. Instead of reading choices defining his time, his time defined his reading. There is something savvy in looking for books that would better help him understand his conditions, but it means the reading list can be dry and grim a lot of the time. There's a bit of the lit snob in his upbringing/education as well. I'm not sure I ever would have picked this up if I knew how it would handle the subject matter, but I can see the value in having this knowledge. It may be the American rather than the Canadian prison system discussed, but the broader implications function well as ammunition if I ever find myself okay enough with confrontation to get into discussions around prison reform/abolition. Even as the author regularly refers to international and historical prison conditions, and his own luck in not experiencing many of the worst things people hear about prison, as a method of acknowledging things could be worse, what's described is still by and large inhumane. NO ONE should have to exist like this.
⚠️ SA, major violence, racism, ableism, homophobia, disordered eating, mental health concerns, suicide
⚠️ SA, major violence, racism, ableism, homophobia, disordered eating, mental health concerns, suicide
whatcharlottereadss's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
apatrick's review
3.0
I've read one or two prison memoirs, like Orange is the New Black. This one is really well-written. The author served ten years for robbery in a variety of facilities in New York. Don't do drugs, kids. Genis is a pretty good writer, but also seems pretty humble about it. I was intrigued by the coupling of reading and prison, and while he does talk a lot about the books he read, the book is organized around other themes, not literature.
As with other prison memoirs, it points out a lot of stuff that's wrong with the system, but that's not its primary aim. This is a memoir, and it's an insight into the life of one man, in circumstances that not many people will experience.
One thing I found noteworthy is that Genis said reading Dan Simmons's Ilium and Olympos spurred him to read Proust. Those books have almost done the same for me. I actually have the five-volume set sitting on a bookshelf right now, but I haven't started it yet. If only I had ten years with nothing else to do (yes, I went there).
As with other prison memoirs, it points out a lot of stuff that's wrong with the system, but that's not its primary aim. This is a memoir, and it's an insight into the life of one man, in circumstances that not many people will experience.
One thing I found noteworthy is that Genis said reading Dan Simmons's Ilium and Olympos spurred him to read Proust. Those books have almost done the same for me. I actually have the five-volume set sitting on a bookshelf right now, but I haven't started it yet. If only I had ten years with nothing else to do (yes, I went there).
arthur_pendrgn's review
2.5
2.5 I found it informative but not that compelling. Organizing around the literature was a creative touch, but the connections between the lit and the experience should then have been stronger. This structure creates a distance between the author and his cell mates, as if his experience were from an outside perspective or of an investigative/undercover journalist. "I am with them but not of them." Perhaps this is his way of handling his experience?
livlaw's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
I found this a super interesting book. Daniel Genis is so observant and the way he writes was so clear.
lee_allen_johnson's review
3.0
I found this book at my library and decided to read by only seeing the cover. Unfortunately he doesn't discuss the "thousand books" he read in prison, a bit of false advertising, and only sometime mentions a few of them, in more of a "I was reading this book when (something prison related happens)". So I was disappointed BUT this memoir of living and working in a few different prisons for ten years was VERY interesting.
humanpuke's review against another edition
The audiobook is narrated by the author which I usually like but this time his tone was too… gleeful? And totally didn’t mesh with the topic at hand. He was also pretty snobby about the books he read and I wasn’t interested in listening to him be surprised that Obama’s election didn’t end racism. There are probably much better prison memoirs than this one.