Silvia Culture

Running the Books, the Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian

Book By Avi Steinberg
 Review by Silvia Wilson

     This memoir of a young man working in the prison library is amusing, touching and compelling. The personal experiences he relates are sometimes frightening, sometimes funny and often thought-provoking.  His interactions with staff and inmates often put him in difficult situations that cause conflict between the rules and his beliefs and values. Some of the interesting cast of characters that the reader will meet include a woman who abandoned her son, a pimp, an aspiring TV chef and a prison archivist.

In prison he witnesses many different forms of creativity. He watches as one female inmate sits as another female inmate does her portrait. It reminds him of the famous portrait-artist Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun.  Avi also teaches writing classes and relates some of the stories his captive students wrote.

Avi’s experiences take him back in time to when he was fervently religious and wanted to study Hebrew scriptures all the time (this somewhat reminds me of David in Only Human, a film I recently reviewed. Raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, he chose to live more separate from it. At one point he comes to appreciate the sacred more because he’s living apart from the community. He is able to remember and see his own past in a different light.

His interactions with the prisoners teach him to take on different points of view. One prisoner leads him to  compare and finds similarities between gangs and Hassidic Jews.

Overall this book is more than just a memoir. It reminds us of the humanity of people in prison. Like the rest of us, they have their hopes, dreams and disappointments.  And they also want to have fun and find a way to “leave their mark.” At one point he views them as being like children and at other times he learns important lessons from them. Overall he wants to care about them and help them.

I loved this book! If you are interested in books based on real-life experiences, you’ll want to read Running the Books.

Running the Books Cover Illustration by Ben Wiseman