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A review by apatrick
Sentence: Ten Years and a Thousand Books in Prison by Daniel Genis
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).