The Prison Book Club

Ann Walmsley is invited to join a book club held inside a men's prison. She hesitates. A violent mugging a few years earlier left her wary, and she wonders whether she can sit in a room with violent offenders. Curiosity wins, and she commits to eighteen months of meetings.

The group is made up of heavily tattooed inmates. Their reading list includes The Grapes of Wrath and, at the other end of the range, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. There is no wine, no cheese, no soft chairs and no small talk about holidays. Novels and non-fiction serve as starting points for blunt conversation about loss, anger, redemption and loneliness.

For the men, the club is a place to feel human again. Graham is a biker and Frank a gunman. Ben and Dread deal drugs, and Gaston and Peter are a pair of robbers. As the sessions go on, they trade opinions on what they read and tell their own life stories.

This is non-fiction, a memoir of the club told from Walmsley's seat at the table. It shows what shared reading does for people serving time, and it suits readers curious about prison life, rehabilitation and what a book can do in a hard place. The tone is warm and direct, with the men's voices at the center.