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Sentence: Ten Years and a Thousand Books in Prison
A memoir of a decade in prison by a well-educated young addict known as the "Apologetic Bandit"In 2003 Daniel Genis, the son of a famous Soviet émigré writer, broadcaster, and culture critic, was fresh out of NYU when he faced a serious heroin addiction that led him into debt and ultimately crime. After he was arrested for robbing people at knifepoint, he was nicknamed the “Apologetic Bandit” in the press, given his habit of expressing regret to his victims as he took their cash. He was sentenced to twelve years—ten with good behavior, a decade he survived by reading 1,046 books, taking up weightlifting, having philosophical discussions with his fellow inmates, working at a series of prison jobs, and in general observing an existence for which nothing in his life had prepared him. Genis describes in unsparing and vivid detail the realities of daily life in the New York penal system. In his journey from Rikers Island and through a series of upstate institutions, he encounters violence on an almost daily basis, while learning about the social strata of gangs, the “court” system that sets geographic boundaries in prison yards, how sex was obtained, the workings of the black market in drugs and more practical goods, the inventiveness required for everyday tasks such as cooking, and how debilitating solitary confinement actually is—all while trying to preserve his relationship with his wife, whom he recently married. Written with empathy and wit, Sentence is a strikingly powerful memoir of the brutalities of prison and how one man survived them, leaving its walls with this book inside him, “one made of pain and fear and laughter and lots of other books.”
318 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2022
43 people are currently reading
895 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Genis
3 books40 followersDaniel Genis was born in New York City and graduated from NYU with degrees in History and French. He has worked as a translator and has written for Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Paris Review’s The Daily, The Washington Post, Vice, Suddeutche Zeitung, The Guardian, Deadspin and New York Daily News.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
May 7, 2022
There are some good insights here, but unfortunately they take a backseat to Genis’s solipsistic narration. Centering his own experience as an ‘over-educated’ white Jewish man in the US prison system, Genis never wholly owns this project as a memoir, but he instead turns his fellow inmates into objects of a sort of sociological study, and none of his (extensive) commentary on blackness or queerness in the prison industrial complex struck me as anything worth reading over similar accounts by black and queer incarcerated people. I don’t know, this whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth, and any goodwill I may have had toward this book evaporated when I switched to the audio halfway through (narrated by the author) and had to listen to Genis’s almost gleeful tone when he was reading particularly disturbing or shocking passages. I don’t doubt that this was a harrowing, profoundly challenging experience for Genis to have survived, but as a book this did not work for me at all.
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March 1, 2022Since I wrote it, I’ll give it five stars, but it’s coming out on February 22nd, 2022 from Viking, and is called
Sentence: Ten Years and a Thousand Books in Prison.
Thanks for the interest, the Penguin-Random House site has more.
Sentence: Ten Years and a Thousand Books in Prison.
Thanks for the interest, the Penguin-Random House site has more.
March 4, 2022
I can’t believe how shallow and self-righteous some of these reviews are. Yes, the book is “grim” - most of it takes place in a freaking cage! And, drug addiction can affect anyone. Maybe Genis’ “intact family” place extraordinary pressure on him and *that* is what caused his addiction. Who knows? That’s not the point of his book. Instead of rehashing the unclear and, perhaps, uninteresting details of *how* he was caged, he chronicled his life inside the cage. That life included the horrors of prison, of course, but also an extended period of intellectual growth few people could hope to achieve in mainstream society. Genis narrated his experiences from a stance of wonder, hope, and stoicism. Without preaching, he made a convincing case for a reformed penal system - one designed to promote self-study, the oldest form of education.
August 5, 2025
I must start this review with my only complaint: I was hoping for a definitive list of all the books Daniel Genis read over the course of his ten years in prison, and I didn’t get one! I love looking at other people’s lists of books in order to find more books to read.
Some of the best reading recommendations have come from fictional characters or real authors describing books that meant a lot to them. Sentence: Ten Years and a Thousand Books in Prison, despite not providing a giant list of books, does mention tons of books meaningful to the author: “I had the escape route of a literary bent, which allowed me to spend my box bids in the castle turrets of Gormenghast and the drawing rooms of Vanity Fair and on the tennis courts of Infinite Jest.”
Make no mistake, however—this is a book about life in prison for a decade more than it is explicitly about reading or books. Once known as the Apologetic Bandit for his tendency to rob people at knifepoint and then apologize, Daniel Genis describes his arrest hilariously: “The woman I had robbed in August followed me and called the cops. She waited outside Barnes & Noble while the police were on their way, to make sure I did not slip away. I had been reading Luc Sante’s Low Life in the store after taking a fix in the bathroom and then stole it to finish it at home. This was the first of many resonances between my fiction and my facts, as the book was devoted to the very Bowery I was now apprehended on to the tune of ‘On the ground, motherfucker!’”
This book is extremely bleak at times in describing life in United States prisons; that being said, this is the most informative book about American prisons I have read to date. After witnessing another prisoner being tricked into consuming human excrement, Daniel Genis reflects: “But having witnessed a deed beyond the realm of what I had once thought possible, I realized I would have to expand that category. And I would do so again and again; there was always a deeper circle of hell, however much I saw that was noble and good inside.”
There are plenty of horrific descriptions of abuse of one kind or another in this book, but I also appreciated the detail Daniel Genis takes in describing the agonizing frustration prisoners face in mundane tasks like being transported from one prison to another: “It would then take an hour just for the driver to take a leak while sixty prisoners sat baking or freezing in the locked vehicle. Sometimes it then took another hour to hand out sandwiches, and then yet another hour would pass just for the hell of it.”
It is challenging to read this book and not think of the phrase “open season” when reading the way correctional officers pack up prisoners’ property when moving cells: “For those prisoners at whom the cops are angry, anything of value gets given away during the process and sometimes open jars of grape jelly, followed by pancake mix, are dumped into bags of clothes and papers. The sex offenders get it the worst. I saw one pick up his bags after a stint in the box and discover that they were entirely filled with the contents of a garbage can.”
I found the last chapter of this book (“Lazarus”) to be particularly moving, especially the inner strength the author finds within himself after completing his time served. Daniel Genis makes another poignant observation when leaving prison that will stay with me for some time after this: “The cops who had to do my paperwork and lead me out treated me differently than what I’d grown accustomed to. I knew how to have a friendly rapport with the COs, which depended on showing an awareness of our different places in life. But now the cops spoke to me as if I were just a regular guy. Had the ten years of aloofness and occasional derision been all an act? Were they taught to treat us the way they did?” I recommend this book to anyone and everyone!
Some of the best reading recommendations have come from fictional characters or real authors describing books that meant a lot to them. Sentence: Ten Years and a Thousand Books in Prison, despite not providing a giant list of books, does mention tons of books meaningful to the author: “I had the escape route of a literary bent, which allowed me to spend my box bids in the castle turrets of Gormenghast and the drawing rooms of Vanity Fair and on the tennis courts of Infinite Jest.”
Make no mistake, however—this is a book about life in prison for a decade more than it is explicitly about reading or books. Once known as the Apologetic Bandit for his tendency to rob people at knifepoint and then apologize, Daniel Genis describes his arrest hilariously: “The woman I had robbed in August followed me and called the cops. She waited outside Barnes & Noble while the police were on their way, to make sure I did not slip away. I had been reading Luc Sante’s Low Life in the store after taking a fix in the bathroom and then stole it to finish it at home. This was the first of many resonances between my fiction and my facts, as the book was devoted to the very Bowery I was now apprehended on to the tune of ‘On the ground, motherfucker!’”
This book is extremely bleak at times in describing life in United States prisons; that being said, this is the most informative book about American prisons I have read to date. After witnessing another prisoner being tricked into consuming human excrement, Daniel Genis reflects: “But having witnessed a deed beyond the realm of what I had once thought possible, I realized I would have to expand that category. And I would do so again and again; there was always a deeper circle of hell, however much I saw that was noble and good inside.”
There are plenty of horrific descriptions of abuse of one kind or another in this book, but I also appreciated the detail Daniel Genis takes in describing the agonizing frustration prisoners face in mundane tasks like being transported from one prison to another: “It would then take an hour just for the driver to take a leak while sixty prisoners sat baking or freezing in the locked vehicle. Sometimes it then took another hour to hand out sandwiches, and then yet another hour would pass just for the hell of it.”
It is challenging to read this book and not think of the phrase “open season” when reading the way correctional officers pack up prisoners’ property when moving cells: “For those prisoners at whom the cops are angry, anything of value gets given away during the process and sometimes open jars of grape jelly, followed by pancake mix, are dumped into bags of clothes and papers. The sex offenders get it the worst. I saw one pick up his bags after a stint in the box and discover that they were entirely filled with the contents of a garbage can.”
I found the last chapter of this book (“Lazarus”) to be particularly moving, especially the inner strength the author finds within himself after completing his time served. Daniel Genis makes another poignant observation when leaving prison that will stay with me for some time after this: “The cops who had to do my paperwork and lead me out treated me differently than what I’d grown accustomed to. I knew how to have a friendly rapport with the COs, which depended on showing an awareness of our different places in life. But now the cops spoke to me as if I were just a regular guy. Had the ten years of aloofness and occasional derision been all an act? Were they taught to treat us the way they did?” I recommend this book to anyone and everyone!
May 8, 2022
Thank you! Finally, a book that has the truth about prison! Having been a prisoner, as well as being black and gay, this was the first book I read that gave an honest account of what it’s like inside. Sure, the author seems to feel a bit sorry for himself because it’s hard on white men inside, but that’s how it is. Some of the reviews here, by Karens white as snow, just leave me shaking my head. You can say that this book took too much pleasure in describing the crazy parts of prison, but having a problem with the author being smart enough to write this well, or brave enough to be honest, or having his eyes open beyond is just spoiled grapes. Imagine reviewing a book negatively because someone DIDN’T write on the delusions you believe in! Anyone who wants the truth about prison and about other matters in our society, as well as a damned good read, should read Sentence!
October 8, 2021
Sentence is boldly engaging, from his well-delivered experiences of being in prison; compelling reflections showcased alongside the thousands of books he read to get him through.
I'm a huge fan of American Prison, while this also offers an insider perspective - it additionally shares a literary road map to better understand all his cultural, religious, violent, and existential experiences all while incarcerated.
This striking prison memoir is written with intelligence, wit, empathy, and remarkable style. Genis is the son of a famous Soviet émigré writer, broadcaster, and culture critic in Russia - and it shows in his storytelling. I was worried a book with a premise this good, wouldn't be able to fully deliver - I'm elated to say, it really does!
Daniel Genis’s debut has the potential to be both a critical and popular success, for few books have portrayed prison so vividly or with such insight.
I'm a huge fan of American Prison, while this also offers an insider perspective - it additionally shares a literary road map to better understand all his cultural, religious, violent, and existential experiences all while incarcerated.
This striking prison memoir is written with intelligence, wit, empathy, and remarkable style. Genis is the son of a famous Soviet émigré writer, broadcaster, and culture critic in Russia - and it shows in his storytelling. I was worried a book with a premise this good, wouldn't be able to fully deliver - I'm elated to say, it really does!
Daniel Genis’s debut has the potential to be both a critical and popular success, for few books have portrayed prison so vividly or with such insight.
May 26, 2022
5 stars from a fellow prison book fanatic.
I tend to leave Goodreads reviews only for titles that were wonderful, awful, or perplexingly mediocre. Sentence definitely falls into the first category. I'm going to chime in with a few reasons as to why it was a great memoir, but then I'm going to do something different and respond in bewilderment to some of the ridiculous 1 star reviews on here.
First things first. There is nothing quite like this book. It is perhaps THE definitive account in modern times of what it's like to be locked behind bars in America as a sensitive, contemplative, introspective, and intellectually curious man. The contemporary literature dealing with “white collar types” disgraced by prison sentences tends to be written from the perspective of fallen financiers. Many of these people had ample intellectual chops to read ethnographies by Sir Richard Francis Burton, or the works of Genet and Proust, but they didn't. Instead, they pored over guides for qualifying for Series 7 and Chartered Financial Analyst exams, or equivalent supplementary Wharton reading materials. They may be smart people, but they possess radically different constitutions and senses of humor from somebody like Genis.
When I did a two year bid in federal prison I certainly didn't meet anybody like Genis. Boy do I wish I had. How do I know that his is a deeply authentic account? Because I spent most of my time behind bars reading just as voraciously. We both had subscriptions to National Geographic, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, and other magazines, and strafed through the literary canon from Boethius to Evelyn Waugh. Now I must stress that our individual experiences inside were drastically different, as the facilities we did our respective times at were vastly different places. But in the many points where our regimens and restrictions intersected, I felt the electricity of recognition and nodded my head while silently mouthing, “That's exactly how it was.”
Perhaps this is a good point at which to segue into a response to the ludicrous critical reviews. I have absolutely no reservations about styling myself as an erstwhile “overeducated” prisoner, a label which some have taken here as a mark of self-unaware hubris. You can cry about it all you want, but it was a fact. The only educational opportunities theoretically available to me in prison were a G.E.D. program (I was ineligible as a high school graduate), and the first level of a Rosetta Stone Spanish course. As a generic liberal arts grad from a state university in Florida, I didn't even have an academic pedigree comparable to Daniel's. I too know the experience of looking at a prison book cart full of James Patterson novels with disgust (or Harry Potter or Bibles or other comparable fare), and occasionally reminding myself that at least the readers responsible for consuming this literary slop were utilizing their free time more meaningfully than those who spent entire days playing dominoes or implanting contraband domino fragments into their dicks.
Given that I had a similar literary collection to Genis, I saw the same looks of befuddlement when another prisoner came into my cell to scope out my goods, and couldn't locate a copy of FHM or Maxim. Do the reviewers here who have never tasted the inside of a prison imagine that there's a sizable population of marginalized occupants who went down the wrong path in life but are sincerely eager to take advantage of their bid by learning more about the larger world around them? That's a relative rarity, and if you think otherwise, then you're in the thrall of fiction.
Genis writes from the heart about the one subject of which he is a near-infallible presenter: the depth and breadth of his very own prison experience. Insofar as he writes about those from other walks of life, he recounts the things he learned about them that enriched his understanding of the full spectrum of incarcerated humanity. Can you imagine the wailing that would have ensued had he tried to narrate the experiences of some other minority (at least any one other than the offspring of Soviet Jewry emigres)? Cue up accusations of cultural appropriate, White Savior Complices, and so forth.
The chutzpah of accusing somebody of featuring themselves too prominently in their own autobiographical fragments is off the charts. I was BOP register number 27225-038. I invite anybody who comments here in disagreement to include their own inmate identification number at the head of their comments.
I tend to leave Goodreads reviews only for titles that were wonderful, awful, or perplexingly mediocre. Sentence definitely falls into the first category. I'm going to chime in with a few reasons as to why it was a great memoir, but then I'm going to do something different and respond in bewilderment to some of the ridiculous 1 star reviews on here.
First things first. There is nothing quite like this book. It is perhaps THE definitive account in modern times of what it's like to be locked behind bars in America as a sensitive, contemplative, introspective, and intellectually curious man. The contemporary literature dealing with “white collar types” disgraced by prison sentences tends to be written from the perspective of fallen financiers. Many of these people had ample intellectual chops to read ethnographies by Sir Richard Francis Burton, or the works of Genet and Proust, but they didn't. Instead, they pored over guides for qualifying for Series 7 and Chartered Financial Analyst exams, or equivalent supplementary Wharton reading materials. They may be smart people, but they possess radically different constitutions and senses of humor from somebody like Genis.
When I did a two year bid in federal prison I certainly didn't meet anybody like Genis. Boy do I wish I had. How do I know that his is a deeply authentic account? Because I spent most of my time behind bars reading just as voraciously. We both had subscriptions to National Geographic, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, and other magazines, and strafed through the literary canon from Boethius to Evelyn Waugh. Now I must stress that our individual experiences inside were drastically different, as the facilities we did our respective times at were vastly different places. But in the many points where our regimens and restrictions intersected, I felt the electricity of recognition and nodded my head while silently mouthing, “That's exactly how it was.”
Perhaps this is a good point at which to segue into a response to the ludicrous critical reviews. I have absolutely no reservations about styling myself as an erstwhile “overeducated” prisoner, a label which some have taken here as a mark of self-unaware hubris. You can cry about it all you want, but it was a fact. The only educational opportunities theoretically available to me in prison were a G.E.D. program (I was ineligible as a high school graduate), and the first level of a Rosetta Stone Spanish course. As a generic liberal arts grad from a state university in Florida, I didn't even have an academic pedigree comparable to Daniel's. I too know the experience of looking at a prison book cart full of James Patterson novels with disgust (or Harry Potter or Bibles or other comparable fare), and occasionally reminding myself that at least the readers responsible for consuming this literary slop were utilizing their free time more meaningfully than those who spent entire days playing dominoes or implanting contraband domino fragments into their dicks.
Given that I had a similar literary collection to Genis, I saw the same looks of befuddlement when another prisoner came into my cell to scope out my goods, and couldn't locate a copy of FHM or Maxim. Do the reviewers here who have never tasted the inside of a prison imagine that there's a sizable population of marginalized occupants who went down the wrong path in life but are sincerely eager to take advantage of their bid by learning more about the larger world around them? That's a relative rarity, and if you think otherwise, then you're in the thrall of fiction.
Genis writes from the heart about the one subject of which he is a near-infallible presenter: the depth and breadth of his very own prison experience. Insofar as he writes about those from other walks of life, he recounts the things he learned about them that enriched his understanding of the full spectrum of incarcerated humanity. Can you imagine the wailing that would have ensued had he tried to narrate the experiences of some other minority (at least any one other than the offspring of Soviet Jewry emigres)? Cue up accusations of cultural appropriate, White Savior Complices, and so forth.
The chutzpah of accusing somebody of featuring themselves too prominently in their own autobiographical fragments is off the charts. I was BOP register number 27225-038. I invite anybody who comments here in disagreement to include their own inmate identification number at the head of their comments.
March 29, 2022
Excellent, painful at times, as I imagine life is in the prison system. However, it is vastly better than many prisons around the world, as the writer points out. If you are curious about what goes on behind those locked doors, this is the book for you. Warning: It is hard to read at times. It seems we have replaced our mental institutions with prisons. The mentally ill are extremely hard for the prisoners to live with, and hard for the mentally ill. Infuriating. The writer does a great job, and I hope he stays clean and out of trouble for the rest of his precious life.
February 22, 2022
What an insightful, intelligent, funny, heartbreaking read.
April 26, 2022
This is a memoir well worth reading if you can handle the grittiness, language, and subject matter.
It's about being locked up in prison for 10 years.
Genis is a clever, smart writer telling what he experienced and observed. I laughed aloud at his turns of phrase and insights when I wasn't skipping pages because I couldn't handle the evil he described.
Not to mention language.
This is a PRISON story. Did I mention that before? The language and activity are what prisoners find themselves doing, even if they don't want to.
Keep that in mind.
He read a lot to understand his situation. As he pointed out, when else would anyone have the time to read the entire Remembrance of Things Past (By Proust).
I envied the reading opportunity, but am glad I didn't have to pay such a high price to read all I wanted.
It's about being locked up in prison for 10 years.
Genis is a clever, smart writer telling what he experienced and observed. I laughed aloud at his turns of phrase and insights when I wasn't skipping pages because I couldn't handle the evil he described.
Not to mention language.
This is a PRISON story. Did I mention that before? The language and activity are what prisoners find themselves doing, even if they don't want to.
Keep that in mind.
He read a lot to understand his situation. As he pointed out, when else would anyone have the time to read the entire Remembrance of Things Past (By Proust).
I envied the reading opportunity, but am glad I didn't have to pay such a high price to read all I wanted.
March 10, 2022
An amazing read about life on the inside. This book was so well written, that at times I felt incarcerated with the author. There was also many parts that took me back to my time in prison, and brought back memories that weren't always welcome. Nonetheless, I'm grateful for having been transported to a violent, scary, place that when you get down to it, is a place filled with mostly normal men that made one mistake that haunts them. This book made me remember why once in prison was enough for me, and why I never want to lose my freedom again.
July 20, 2022
I wanted to like this book much more than I did. The author's claim to always be "the smartest person in the room" throughout his time in prison I found incredibly offputting. Also, I'd've appreciated a list of the 1,000 read books. Instead of buying and reading this book, donate to one of these groups: https://libguides.ala.org/book-donati...
May 1, 2022
Very informative prison memoir. The "thousand books" aspect is not all that central to the story, although it does report on the reading and some parallels from books (particularly fiction) to the events in prison. It excelled for me in myth-busting the prison experience and describing the way prison experience works. The book did not dwell on remorse by the author or other convicts, but was more about "what do I do now to survive." The author took pride in staying safe, becoming fit, and becoming more well-read.
I was interested to learn about the prison economy, how prisoners exchange goods, and how different prisons operate. It answers some questions like "How do prisoners get illegal drugs?" and "what is it like to be among ethnic gangs in prison?". Was happy to have read the book, and found it entertaining and I learned a lot.
I was interested to learn about the prison economy, how prisoners exchange goods, and how different prisons operate. It answers some questions like "How do prisoners get illegal drugs?" and "what is it like to be among ethnic gangs in prison?". Was happy to have read the book, and found it entertaining and I learned a lot.
March 24, 2022
This book is an engaging and informational look at the New York prison system. I appreciate how Genis is straightforward and honest and does not look to make generalizations about the prison experience. If you are looking for a critical and broad overview of prison systems in general, this is not the book for you. Genis stays true to his own perspective and experiences, which I loved.
At times, I found offhanded comments about women to be grating and there were moments were Genis’ casual descriptions of racism and hate crimes were frustrating. Nevertheless, Sentence was highly engaging and a very interesting read that kept me hooked the whole time.
At times, I found offhanded comments about women to be grating and there were moments were Genis’ casual descriptions of racism and hate crimes were frustrating. Nevertheless, Sentence was highly engaging and a very interesting read that kept me hooked the whole time.
March 28, 2022
It is always impressive to read a book by someone who was previously incarcerated. My only critique is the book is not in chronological order and sometimes I would want more information on something and it would only be lightly touched on in the paragraph. I would have liked to hear more about his life before prison and right after as well. It is well written and the parallels to books he read was interesting.
March 11, 2022
Harrowing. Hilarious. Horrifying.
Extremely entertaining, insightful, and compelling—written with wry wit, brutal honesty, and just the right amount of erudition. This is a major achievement in memoir.
Extremely entertaining, insightful, and compelling—written with wry wit, brutal honesty, and just the right amount of erudition. This is a major achievement in memoir.
March 22, 2022
I love books by prisoners about prison. This is a great one, and with a different take. I think the decision to avoid chronology was correct, but it can take a little of the power away at times.
May 10, 2022
If I ever go to prison, I'll feel more prepared after reading this book!
February 25, 2023
I picked up Sentence at the library on a whim because I like books about books, and having pretty much zero knowledge of the American prison system, I thought it would be an enlightening read. I was taken aback by Genis’s mastery of language and the way that he recounts his time in prison with acuity and wit. There were a few sections that I skipped (mainly some sketches of fellow inmates), but since the book is structured by topic instead of chronologically, I didn’t feel that I missed any important details. Most of what I read was new to me: I had no idea about the strict social mores behind bars, systems of commerce, demographics, and sheer horror of some of the finer details.
I see that some reviews comment on the author’s stance and tone — seeing as this is a memoir, I don’t think it’s fair to discredit Genis’s prison experience just because he’s a white man making a few observations about queer inmates and inmates of colour, especially since he does simply seem to be recounting what he lived through. I don’t think these sections are lacking in sensitivity at all, and I was actually struck by his sympathetic tone as the narrative went on. He does refer to himself as learned but this didn’t bother me, and who’s to say that he is wrong in claiming to be one of the smartest inmates? After all, he dives into the importance of identity in prison and how inmates lose their whole sense of self and become a number, so it’s no wonder that his own sense of self hinges on the more positive aspect of who he is (a relatively privileged intellectual) as opposed to the less fortunate side (addict serving 10 year sentence). Seeing as the premise of the book is the fact that he read over 1000 books while serving his sentence, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he takes pride in this and is forthright in having a rich inner life as well as a fairly affluent background. Although the book discussion isn’t as prominent as I thought it might be, I still enjoyed this memoir thoroughly.
I see that some reviews comment on the author’s stance and tone — seeing as this is a memoir, I don’t think it’s fair to discredit Genis’s prison experience just because he’s a white man making a few observations about queer inmates and inmates of colour, especially since he does simply seem to be recounting what he lived through. I don’t think these sections are lacking in sensitivity at all, and I was actually struck by his sympathetic tone as the narrative went on. He does refer to himself as learned but this didn’t bother me, and who’s to say that he is wrong in claiming to be one of the smartest inmates? After all, he dives into the importance of identity in prison and how inmates lose their whole sense of self and become a number, so it’s no wonder that his own sense of self hinges on the more positive aspect of who he is (a relatively privileged intellectual) as opposed to the less fortunate side (addict serving 10 year sentence). Seeing as the premise of the book is the fact that he read over 1000 books while serving his sentence, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he takes pride in this and is forthright in having a rich inner life as well as a fairly affluent background. Although the book discussion isn’t as prominent as I thought it might be, I still enjoyed this memoir thoroughly.
July 26, 2022
This author definitely thinks he's clever-- and OH SO above his FELLOW convicts. Maybe if he were so clever, he might, I don't know, just throwing this out there -- not have gotten a ten year sentence?
He CONSTANTLY reminds you he IS in fact intelligent, and only his KIND way of robbing people got him in prison. His name-dropping of authors becomes exhausting. He's just so above it all.
His arrogance is palpable. He talks of one trans inmates and reminds you, dear reader, "The inmates don't know about pronouns, but we do, so let's use the proper ones." As if all inmates live under a rock, and are primitive mouth breathers-- but we, the public reading his book, and he-- are just so much better than them.
Well, it might work, if only you weren't one of them.
He CONSTANTLY reminds you he IS in fact intelligent, and only his KIND way of robbing people got him in prison. His name-dropping of authors becomes exhausting. He's just so above it all.
His arrogance is palpable. He talks of one trans inmates and reminds you, dear reader, "The inmates don't know about pronouns, but we do, so let's use the proper ones." As if all inmates live under a rock, and are primitive mouth breathers-- but we, the public reading his book, and he-- are just so much better than them.
Well, it might work, if only you weren't one of them.
April 11, 2022
The subtitle is what got me interested, but the substance is what kept me reading.
A fascinating book that talks about life within the walls of correctional facilities. With some info being familiar through pop culture and the few people I know through however many degrees of Kevin Bacon, while others being surprises that made me go "what?"
One reason why I picked up this book was due to a visit from two prison librarians in a class I took my first semester at grad school (MLIS.) They talked about their work in a prison for both men and women. The precautions that had to take place because of the potentially dangerous conditions, yet the compassion for the inmates, especially for those who couldn't read, opened my eyes to this population that we often forget about. This book was a wonderful follow-up for that visit, and I frequently thought back to the librarians and their patrons.
A fascinating book that talks about life within the walls of correctional facilities. With some info being familiar through pop culture and the few people I know through however many degrees of Kevin Bacon, while others being surprises that made me go "what?"
One reason why I picked up this book was due to a visit from two prison librarians in a class I took my first semester at grad school (MLIS.) They talked about their work in a prison for both men and women. The precautions that had to take place because of the potentially dangerous conditions, yet the compassion for the inmates, especially for those who couldn't read, opened my eyes to this population that we often forget about. This book was a wonderful follow-up for that visit, and I frequently thought back to the librarians and their patrons.
February 28, 2022
I was drawn to the title expecting Daniel's story to be more about the books he read while incarcerated. In actuality, he tells more about the experience of prison and how he survived with sprinkles of the books woven in. Don't get me wrong, Daniel's story is fascinating. I learned that long believed ideas of prison are actually myths, and learned truths that won't soon be forgotten.
The layout is interesting. Rather than being told chronologically, Daniel tackles topics in each chapter such as solitary confinement, gangs, and being transferred between facilities. Much of the book is graphic. Expect that going in. It's a depiction of one man's life behind bars after all.
The layout is interesting. Rather than being told chronologically, Daniel tackles topics in each chapter such as solitary confinement, gangs, and being transferred between facilities. Much of the book is graphic. Expect that going in. It's a depiction of one man's life behind bars after all.
May 10, 2022
The purpose of the book is to inform its reader that the author survived the depths of human misery in NY state prison because of his ability, with his back against the wall, time after time, to cleverly accentuate and coyly renounce certain attributes of his identity thereby narrowly saving himself from most brutal fates. Literature is where his identity and personality in prison properly resides, unadulterated, and it is on account of literature that the social shape shifting the author is forced to endure becomes subsumed under a comic, grand, human narrative that the memoir itself becomes just one artifact among several.
April 14, 2022
I loved this book. It was fascinating and mostly new information to me and never dehumanized the prisoners featured. It never felt preachy but revealed many injustices with the US penal system. My only criticism is I expected it to have more about books in it given the title. Highly recommend.
August 19, 2022
I was between 3 and 4 stars here. This book was (roughly) 30% American prison expose, 25% memoir, 25% discussion of the books he read in prison, 20% social commentary. At times it gave me whiplash, but I ultimately enjoyed it. It was very interesting and engaging, even if at times the style didn't sit right with me.
I rounded down my rating because the editing job was poor. Sorry.
I rounded down my rating because the editing job was poor. Sorry.
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October 22, 2021Having witnessed some of the events described in this book and experienced them from another angle, it’s a pleasure to read such a writerly account of a rare life! No exaggeration, though political correctness seems to have eaten away some of the harder-edged stories, and enough humor to make up for the tragedy! Oh the humanity- and that shit sandwich in the beginning.
May 26, 2022
I wanted to like this more, was hoping for more on the books read. What I took away though was that it feels as Daniel Genis believes himself to be better educated and his taste in food and books better than others. It’s well written, just not what I had expected.
September 1, 2023
4.5 stars. Daniel Genis's memoir about the ten years he spent in prison serving a drug-related sentence was an unexpected gem for me. Using his own experiences, he comments on social issues while dispelling and confirming some cultural myths about spending time in prison. He explores how race plays a role in incarceration, the importance of religion while inside, the way sex and especially homosexuality are dealt with, prisons as a social institution and more. He also explores several unlikely friendships and new insights he gained while inside. Genis writes with candor, compassion and an endearingly self-deprecating wit. In reading the book, it becomes easy to see why Genis, who apologized to people as he was stealing from them to fund his drug habit, was known in the media as "The Apologetic Bandit." I also admire Genis's love of foreign languages, reading and translation, as well as his commitment to self-education. He is also an extremely avid reader, and mentions several times that he read 1,046 books while in jail. If not for the heroin issue, this guy might be the man of my dreams, no joke!
My only (very minor) quibble with the book has to do with its title. When I bought this book, I thought it would go into much more detail about the books Genis was reading, and I do think he could have spent a bit more time analyzing what they meant to him in prison, rather than writing a few sentences here and there about some of the books he enjoyed. I do think his focus was on social critique, and this is beautifully done, so I wouldn't say Genis made the wrong decision. As a fellow bookworm, though, a little more bookish content would have been nice, and would have made the book-heavy epilogue where he analyzes Proust in detail seem less of an afterthought. Overall, this was a fantastic book that gave me new insight and brought a lot of pleasure at the same time.
My only (very minor) quibble with the book has to do with its title. When I bought this book, I thought it would go into much more detail about the books Genis was reading, and I do think he could have spent a bit more time analyzing what they meant to him in prison, rather than writing a few sentences here and there about some of the books he enjoyed. I do think his focus was on social critique, and this is beautifully done, so I wouldn't say Genis made the wrong decision. As a fellow bookworm, though, a little more bookish content would have been nice, and would have made the book-heavy epilogue where he analyzes Proust in detail seem less of an afterthought. Overall, this was a fantastic book that gave me new insight and brought a lot of pleasure at the same time.
August 9, 2022
This might be the best book I’ve ever read. For one, it’s actually honest about prison and how it works racially. That’s a rarity to begin with. But it also deeply understands what doing a bid is like. Strangely enough, the white author also has a good handle on what it’s like to be a black man, when your masculinity is defined by your criminal and violent ‘achievements’… by the way, there are a few other reviews here, mostly by whites women, that are so obnoxiously entitled in their weak ‘critiques’. Where do these Karens get off telling the other he didn’t write what he was supposed to? If you want to read the only true and honest book on doing time in America, this is for you. If you haven’t done any time but have something to say, think of how that look first. I’m out- I only got on this site to review Sentence, because the last time a book made this much of an impression on me it was the Bible.
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