However, Steinberg learns a great deal about hope, despair, pride, compassion, revenge, duty, and the depths of the human condition along the way. Occasionally he falls off, sometimes for good and sometimes for worse. Subtitled “the Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian,” this memoir by Avi Steinberg offers a view of prison work, and by extension prison life and culture, that is at once revealing and completely relatable.Īn outsider both to the inmate population and prison guard staff, Steinberg continuously teeters on a fine line created by the dictates of prison regulations. It is for that reason that I found “Running the Books” so intriguing.
Made alternately exciting and terrifying, our view of prisons is always bleak, dangerous, and completely distanced from what we call “the real world.” For many, the only time we think of prisons is when we’re forced to by action films or horrific news stories. A place devoid of color and indulgence, and largely invisible to those who have never been inside. Prisons are designed to be a world separate from our own.
We spend week beforehand lining up permissions and details so that we can leave a stack of books at their front door. At POP, several times a year we make large book donations to maximum security prisons.
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