Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian

by Avi Steinberg

Avi Steinberg is stumped. After defecting from yeshiva to Harvard, he has only a senior thesis essay on Bugs Bunny to show for his effort. While his friends and classmates advance in the world, he remains stuck at a crossroads, unable to meet the lofty expectations of his Orthodox Jewish upbringing. And his romantic existence as a freelance obituary writer just isn’t cutting it. Seeking direction—and dental insurance—Steinberg takes a job as a librarian in a tough Boston prison.
 
The prison library counter, his new post, attracts con men, minor prophets, ghosts, and an assortment of quirky regulars searching for the perfect book and a connection to the outside world. There’s an anxious pimp who solicits Steinberg’s help in writing a memoir. A passionate gangster who dreams of hosting a cooking show titled Thug Sizzle. A disgruntled officer who instigates a major feud over a Post-it note. A doomed ex-stripper who asks Steinberg to orchestrate a reunion with her estranged son, himself an inmate. Over time, Steinberg is drawn into the accidental community of outcasts that has formed among his bookshelves — a drama he recounts with heartbreak and humor. But when the struggles of the prison library — between life and death, love and loyalty — become personal, Steinberg is forced to take sides.

Running the Books is a trenchant exploration of prison culture and an entertaining tale of one young man’s earnest attempt to find his place in the world while trying not to get fired in the process. 

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Books About Books, Biography Memoir, Autobiography, Adult

399 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Avi Steinberg's first book, Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian, was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker’s Culture Desk blog. His essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Salon, The Paris Review Daily and n+1.

Reviews

[Avi Steinberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! The best book I've written all year.

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave this one the old college try -- got about a hundred pages in and realized I was so not into the book that I gave up. I had high hopes for this book, a memoir written by a (relatively) young man who accepts a job as a prison librarian. Unfortunately, the book failed to hold my interest or capture my attention. A vicious edit might have helped; but part of the problem was that even though you'd think the author would have gained much in the way of both experience and insight, the author just wasn't able to tell an engaging story or pull together an interesting insight. Too many pointless digressions (did we need to hear that much about a wedding the author attended shortly before starting his new job? I think not), an undercurrent of contempt for the people around him (coworkers and inmates alike), and worst of all, it just wasn't interesting or enjoyable to read.

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Running the Books", by Avi Steinberg is subtitled, "The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian". On the surface, it's an interesting look at how the author spent two years as a librarian in one of Boston's prisons. Avi Steinberg was an obituary writer and had no previous training or experience as a librarian. He answered a want ad and the next thing he knew he had landed an interview.

But this book is about far more than that. It is a poignant examination of people. Not just any people, but the sort of people that are in prison as well as the guards, the prison staff, and the author himself.

I was attracted to this book for two main reasons: 1) I like books and anything to do with them, and 2) I am always up for learning about aspects of life that I've never personally encountered. Prison life has long been an enigma for me and although I enjoyed watching "Prison Break" on TV I assumed that wasn't normal prison life. Parts of this book are humorous, parts sad, and parts downright disturbing but I think the author really gets down to the nitty gritty of how the people interact, especially with him. We see the ugliness of prison politics, how the author himself tries to do the right thing only to get caught up in it himself. We see a wide variety of inmate personalities, and dive in deep to see a handful of them up close. I won't go into details so as not to provide spoilers but rest assured many of the inmates’ stories are tragic. Along the way, we learn about the author's own life experiences both inside the prison library and outside. One can't help but to wonder how we, the readers, would handle some of the situations he encounters and how they would affect us and our outlook on life.

[David Rubenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an autobiographical episode on the.life of Avi Steinberg, an orthodox Jew who decided to work as a proson librarian. He walks a thin line between pleasing his employer and helping prison inmates. Some of his stories are hilarious while others are full of pathos.

Some of the library "patrons" used the library in order to help build up a legal defense. Others were interested in novels or poerry.

I thought it especially interesting about the feeling of respect that gang members had for Hassidic Jews. They stick together, wear special clothes and hair styles, and are territorial and very protective. Thus, Hassids are looked upon as an ultimate gang, of a type to be respected and even emulated, if at all possible.

[T.W. Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Running The Books by Avi Steinberg is one of those titles that stands out as very different from what I am known for reading. No zombies or vampires here. However, it does take the reader inside prison...a concept I AM familiar with.

As somebody familiar with the prison environment, I'm always interested in the mythology that swirls about involving the realm of incarceration. Television--for whatever reason--likes to glamorize the worst of the worst. The tendency is to feature the outlandish wanna-be trannies and the violently anti-social.

Running With The Books is more than just a peek inside the Big House. It is about a man who makes parallel discoveries about his own life and the lives of the inmates he meets at his post as a prison librarian. It is amazing what a person can discover about his own life when watching others.

As somebody who knows, it was fascinating to see the mind of a "civilian" struggle with dealing face-to-face with inmates. There were moments while reading and I would find myself saying, "Avi, you are gonna get screwed." It was tough to read at times...realizing before the writer that he had committed a terrible mistake in an unforgiving environment.

I can say firsthand that there is a real desire among the incarcerated to be treated and thought of as regular men and women. However, it is one of the biggest mistakes that a civilian worker or CO can make inside the fence.

While it is one thing to help and invest time helping an inmate who is trying to better themself...it takes a lot of discipline to not cross a very blurry line. For every "honest" inmate trying to make positive changes in their lives, there are ten who will abuse any act of charity and kindness. That is a painful thing to say as somebody who has been locked up, but it is the truth.

I could go on forever about that subject, but this is a book review, not a dissertation for a psyche class on the mindset of the incarcerated. Running the Books is a fascinating read...for both sides: civilians and the incarcerated. It would be a brilliant book club selection and spark some fascinating dialog. (Especially if a prison book club were to read it. Yes, such things DO exist.)

If you know somebody who is locked up, send them the book. Otherwise, it is a wonderful and fascinating drama. Steinberg draws you in, not only to his story, but the multitude of stories that unfold around him.

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I liked this book more.

It's an interesting premise. An unlikely guy, former Orthodox Jew, Harvard underachiever, kind of drifting through life, ends up working as a prison librarian despite his lack of skills and experience in the field. But like many memoirs, particularly those of the my-crazy-job genre, the lack of a narrative arc reduced it to a collection of anecdotes which were probably more interesting to live through than to read about. I was touched here and there by some poignant encounters and occasionally identified with Avi's religious background but otherwise, it was a long and unrewarding slog.

Sometimes I chalk reactions like these up to audiobook ADD, but I don't think that was the case here. I think the book simply failed to engage me, despite its occasional merits.

[Cian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was ok. It held great promise that it never achieved. The book is at its best when it is painting vignettes of the narrator's experience, and at its weakest when it philosophizes about the meaning of it all and lessons learned. Individual stories in the book work well, but tied together the tone and style are inconsistent and fail to propel you forward.

Through it all I had the nagging feeling that the author was profiting off the backs of the prisoners -- the success of his book is in their stories, their characters. Some of the most poignant writing is actually excerpts from prisoners' poetry or kites (illegal messages stowed in the library, left for another prisoner).

The tale is one of a young writer, thrown into a job as a prison librarian even though he has no experience or knowledge of the job. He lands there in an attempt to give focus and structure to his life, but unfortunately that same aimlessness pervades the book's writing as well as its subject matter.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a more personal book than I was expecting. There was still plenty of insight into the working life of a prison librarian-- even if he isn't a *real* librarian (no MLS). The most disturbing thing was that I don't think his clientele was much scarier or more unruly than mine. :-/

[Dena · Rating 1 out of 5]

I will say this – the author has a masterful way of making fun of the Boston accent, sometimes accurate sometimes not so much. Very creative though – I'll give him that. Was really disappointed by this book. Okay this is going to be very long and spoiler alerts, etc. Read this book with interest since it was about the prison library at the Suffolk County House of Correction in Boston or South Bay. South Bay replaced the facility, which was located on Deer Island an island in Boston Harbor adjacent to my town of Winthrop by road. Also, in the mid-90's I worked for a women's nonprofit agency that ran several substance abuse and re-entry programs for incarcerated and post release women. I was an assistant trying to raise funds and awareness and sometimes just trying to get our contractors including the Suffolk County Sherriff's Dept., to pay us so our meager payroll would not bounce. I took many trips out New Market Square (where the Dancing Deer bakery was based) to pick up RFPS at South Bay, the Greater Boston Food Bank, and 1010 Mass. Ave a state admin. building. There is also a shopping center nearby on the border with Dorchester called South Bay – they have a Target.

Had a lot of technical issues with this book. I don't really think the author did enough homework, or he's taking a lot of literary license here. A lot of time he seems to refer to the prison or "the bay" and the guards in the context of being a state facility even though it is a county jail. I think mostly I found objectionable the use of CO for Corrections Officer, but sorry state DOC guards are not guards at South Bay and I'm sure a lot of folks are growling at this author for lumping them in together as drones, poles, among other things. To note the counties here in Mass., are merging with other entities to save money both short and long term, therefore their employees are fighting to be grandfathered in for benefits and retirements, which are going to be downgraded if not already.

Since I'm Jewish via intermarriage and would have been literally stoned by the author during his hard core days of Orthodox yeshiva study in the West Bank – I'm wondering what the heck the pinnacle event or epiphany was that had him turn away not just from fanaticism but the whole enchilada of his religion—because he never really said if/why this happened to him. Repeats that he fled to Harvard befriending a pseudo hippie wild child, only to write about Bugs Bunny and get high? Then he was a Boston Globe Metro reporter and gave up that gig for obits? Yeah I don't think Torah or the Talmud was the problem – perhaps hitting a little too much of the 420? Yet he kept the Orthodox definitions of Judaism all through the book. He's like an addict thumping the loudest he can – he's says he's a former Yeshiva boy well I don't buy it. He sounds just like what he says he turns away from because the only Jewish definitions are the Orthodox ones and he never acknowledges that because to the Orthodox the rest of the Jews aren't really Jews. I don't care how much weed he's smoked he's still singing to the same choir he says he rails against.

The sympathy he feigns for the inmates I'm not buying it either. His whole spiel about how no one could get his name right actually protecting him made me ill. His interest in the Jewish drug addict from the suburbs was the kicker. His attempts to weave both his Jewish faith and the history of Sylvia Plath left me cold. Winthrop is a town not a "residential neighborhood." Plath lived here as a child then moved to Wellesley. Johnson Ave. where one of my dearest high school friends lived (doors down from the former Plath house) and blocks away from my house, is on the bay side of the harbor – no where near the Deer Island, we are in the Centre section of town, the island and the former jail are located off Point Shirley or our neighborhood called the Point. The old town cemetery where indeed Mr. Plath is buried is also located in the Centre part of our town. Plath's poem "Point Shirley" like all poetry is open to interpretation. Plath's images of Yirrell Beach (the Point beach) are spot on – and themes about her grandmother and her death – well I respectfully disagree the imagery is directly connected to the former jail.

The author said he made a few field trips but I take issue. There is a sewage treatment plant on Deer Island and a few other county administrative buildings. There is a walk/bike path around the perimeter open to the public which faces mostly open ocean and is windy. And the guard booth is not Victorian—there is a camera that takes your picture and mails you a ticket if you violate the gate. Also the former Charles Street Jail I believe predates the dates he gave, although I agree the whole concept of the boutique Liberty Hotel, I find creepy. They left the baring walls with the solitary wall slits in the restaurant and personally would not want to sleep there.

The author says he took the job at the library because he needed an option of health insurance but then was plagued by problems by the stress of the job. Yet the author had no sympathy only disdain for the trainer from the Sherriff's Dept., who quite tragically told the trainees as a coping mechanism he gave himself a little treat from the stress or implied PTSD of the job, his divorce and life in general, by having a little piece of cake each night.

I found this book to be an opportunity to have a single vehicle for publishing "my story" and strikingly similar actually to The Devil Wears Prada. Perhaps he can compare notes with that author at all those literary cocktail parties. He should make a few brookahs to ask for forgiveness for blatantly using all these people both the inmates and his former colleagues and see how that goes. Yes being careful getting down off my soap box now.

[Susan (aka Just My Op) · Rating 5 out of 5]

{Edit: I clicked on 4-stars even though I think this is a 4 1/2-star book and I usually round up, so I'm changing it to be one of my few 5-stars.]

4 1/2 stars. Although I'm not the first to quote it, I love the first few lines of this memoir:

Pimps make the best librarians. Psycho killers, the worst. Ditto con men. Gangsters, gunrunners, bank robbers – adept at crowd control, at collaborating with a small staff, at planning with deliberation and executing with contained fury, all possess the librarian's
basic skill set.

With this start, I expected the book to have some funny moments. I didn't expect its poignancy.

Tired of his job as an obituary writer, a nerdy Jewish guy responds to a Craigslist posting for a prison librarian. Hoping the drugs are out of his system so that he can pass mandatory screening, he applies for and receives the job, probably due to the bar being set incredibly low. As an added plus, or perhaps not, he is given the task of teaching creative writing to people who just want the change of scenery.

Mr. Steinberg finds the humanity in prison, understands how his abrasive grandmother was not unlike the inmates, imprisoned by her own life. An inmate points out how Avi's neglected Jewish faith should be taken more seriously, how Hasidim is “the epitome of gangsta.” And it makes sense.

Lots of posturing, lots of facades, but Avi saw beyond that. Some of the prisoners let him see the insides of their minds. I found it interesting that although the author was a civil employee, he seemed to have much more empathy for the inmates than for the guards. While there are some kindnesses, the officers are often portrayed negatively, in their own petty gangsta world. Still, there are officers like the one who was proud of helping keep society safe, yet went to church every week to ask forgiveness for locking humans in a cage.

A story that especially touched me was that of Jessica, a prisoner who watched her own son playing basketball in the recreation yard below. However, whenever the author got too sentimental or too Pollyanna, he would get (mostly figuratively) smacked down. He recalls joking with a prisoner about being a pimp, and then encountering the reality of that word when he meets him outside of prison. Learning about the horrible crimes of someone he was mentoring.

Even though this is an entertaining read, every once in awhile it would touch me deeply enough that I would just close the book and say “wow,” my generation's equivalent of OMG.

It wasn't remarkable...for an officer to run into harm's way to break up a fight.... That after all was his job, his training. But for him to find a way to be compassionate in an environment like prison, that was courage.

The quotes are taken from a bound galley and may be different in the finished version. Thank you to the publisher for giving me this galley.

[Sanalith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for a book club at work, and while I eventually came to like it, it was definitely a hard book to get into. This autobiography tells the story of a man who become a prison librarian in Boston.

The author wrote in a very anecdotal style, and he would switch from one story to another and then back again with no seeming connection. This made it very hard to keep track of what happened when, and since there was a very large cast of characters, it became difficult to remember who did what to whom. If you don't mind that sort of lack of continuity, it's definitely a touching a book. The author's battle with what it means to be a government employee in a very dangerous environment wars with his innate - and very religious - upbringing to simply be kind to everyone and help them.

As a warning, this is not in any way, shape or form a happy or uplifting book. Both the author and I went into this tale hoping to find some sort of evidence of the transformative power of books, but that really doesn't happen. There's a lot of death, a lot of pain and a lot of broken dreams, which can be quite depressing. It is, however, a very realistic and vivid picture of prison life, and how the circle of violence and addiction - once begun - is almost impossible to break.

I'm not sorry I read it, but I'll be diving into something that promises a nice happy ending next.

[Kressel Housman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Friends and readers of my book reviews all know my main interests in life apart from my family: Judaism and books. I don’t know if it comes across as clearly, but I also have a long-standing and deep interest in poverty and solutions to it. So when I learned of this memoir in which an ex-yeshiva student becomes a librarian and creative writing teacher in a prison, I knew I had to check it out. The book has some minor apikorsos (Jewish heresy) and a whole lot of cursing and vulgarity, but ultimately, it’s a beautiful human story about people relating to each other with the aid of books.

That’s not to say the book Hollywoodizes the situation. Avi, the author, mocks the reformed-criminal-turned-humanitarian storyline early on. Some of the inmates he befriends really do work hard on raising themselves, but the results are often mixed if not downright tragic. Luckily, Avi knows how to offset the tragedy with humor. Some parts are so funny, I literally laughed out loud.

I understand that not everyone wants an inside view of the criminal world. Aside from all the violence and vulgarity, many people simply have no sympathy for convicts. Avi goes through this himself on discovering what one of his most loyal creative writing students actually did to end up in jail. But all in all, he develops strong relationships with several of the inmates, even though he does have to bend and break a few rules along the way. At the beginning of the book, he’s the insecure new guy on the job. At the end, he’s a master. I, for one, admire him greatly.

The Jewish vignettes in the book are few compared to the prison stories, but me being me, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention them. The most poignant is a flashback to his yeshiva days on the West Bank. Absolutely hilarious and fairly accurate is the inmates’ assessment of Hasidic Jews. I read that section out loud to my husband, a Hasid of Karlin-Stolin. And it was a pleasant surprise that one of Avi’s great grandparents also turned out to be a Karliner Hasid. The Rebbe at that time gave his zaideh a bracha to succeed in business. I like to think that bracha lasted through the generations and helped Avi in his “business.” He repeats several times that the ancient prophets were either imprisoned themselves or associated with prisoners. In other words, it’s an ancient Jewish tradition. No doubt there will be naysayers, but if you ask me, he did holy work in that prison. May Hashem continue to bless him with success.

[Shomeret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I had an upbringing similar to Avi's and had also decided not to live a Jewish Orthodox lifestyle, I identified with Avi. I also liked his sincere commitment to helping prisoners and recognizing them as human beings.

I got a great deal of insight into prison culture from this book, but I have never wanted to be a prison librarian. I had understood even before I read Avi's memoir that it could be a dangerous occupation. Avi had two dangerous incidents. The most disturbing to me was his encounter with an ex-con who had a beef with him after his having paid a bereavement call to the mother of a dead prisoner. Avi wouldn't have been in those circumstances if it hadn't been for his compassion. So I'd consider Avi's account of this incident a warning to compassionate people like Avi who are considering prison librarianship. Don't do it. You could get killed.

Since Avi didn't have a MLS degree, I suspect that his actual title must have been Library Assistant. The prison probably couldn't afford to hire more than one qualified librarian. Avi also taught a creative writing class. There is a great deal of focus on this class and the students in it.

One of Avi's students taught him a lesson in librarianship. She was one of many woman prisoners who idolized Sylvia Plath. This woman inmate committed suicide. Afterwards, Avi considered locking up the Sylvia Plath books or restricting access to them. Then he realized that this is censorship and that it isn't the role of a librarian to censor. He decided that as a teacher he should teach and discuss Sylvia Plath in context. I began to see Plath differently as a result of seeing the movie Sylvia. The movie theorized that she was bi-polar. It made me examine her work for signs of her condition, and I think it's fairly obvious when you look. The Sylvia Plath Death Maidens could benefit from this perspective. It's a far better strategy than censorship which would make them even more stubborn adherents of their death cult because Plath's writings would be forbidden. There are always more constructive ways to deal with controversial books than banning them.

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the end of the day, this book was just "meh" for me. It had so much potential, as it had a lot of elements I could relate to, but at the end of the day I felt it was scattered, poorly edited, and slightly pretentious.

Things I liked: I felt it was a frank description that mirrored my perceptions of prison life. Additionally, I enjoyed the author's comments and analysis of his position there: anyone who spends time looking at the prison system sees that it is designed to punish, isolate, and destroy souls. Working in a prison makes one complicit in this; however, sharing, trust-building and kindness, despite being radical acts, do surface despite this atmosphere. I liked the way the inmates were portrayed - very three dimensionally. Lastly, I enjoyed the author's self-awareness and reflection, particularly around his Orthodox Jewish identity.

Things I didn't like: The editing, in several sentences words were spelled incorrectly or punctuation simply not present (and not in a way signaling speech, in a sloppy way). The length, this book just had too much in it and because of this, things didn't cohere correctly. The editors of this book should have cut out at least 50 pages of self-absorbed references to literary figures (aside from Plath, which I felt was a well integrated figure). The way the author handled certain issues, including ultimately ambivalent treatment of women and queer people.

Definitely worth a read if you are interested "what a prison is like on the inside" but only if you're willing to commit to the occasional slog in the mud.

[K2 ----- · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have written to a young woman in prison for over ten years. It's one of those things I'd like to be remembered were the tables turned.

Avi, the book's author and a Harvard graduate, got a job as a prison librarian with no education in library science. He is obviously a young man with a good heart and I think he does a good job trying to explain to someone "on the outside" the culture of prison.

I thought it was well done although obviously it is a first book too with the usual flaws of a young writer.

I have often heard people say that prison culture is unlike most any other and I think he does a good job explaining this. It's not easy to bring that world out to the wider society. I read Orange is the New Black and thought that was well done although some would say she was too pampered to give the real scoop. Certainly there were things Steinberg dropped into the book that were never resolved like why he turned his back on his zealot-like devotion to Judiasm or what happened to his medical school girlfriend he often refers to.

The prison industrial complex is something that few people are ready to examine with a cool vision and see how broken it is and how, like the military provides so much employment it is not easily reformed. We spend way too much on incarceration and too little on early education and until we wake up to this we are going to continue to spend an excess of $40K a year keeping people warehoused with few options for honest work when they are released.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Disclaimer: I know the author's mother.)

I began reading this book precisely because I do know the author's mother, and without any real interest in the subject of prison libraries. It is a testament to Steinberg's storytelling gift that I found myself unable to put it down. Alternately funny, heartbreaking, and thoughtful, Steinberg maintains a nuanced view of human nature throughout, making any equally thoughtful reader think hard about sticky questions such as good and evil, crime and redemption, love and revenge, doing good and getting by. He avoid the easy answers - just as he is thoroughly charmed and even moved by a memoir-writing pimp who grew up on the streets, he comes to a full understanding of the horror of the crimes this man has committed. And approximately one page after I, the reader, began to think, "Hey, can't this guy be both? He is both good and bad, just like everyone else," Steinberg the narrator comes to the same conclusion, beautifully allowing the reader to reach the conclusion that Steinberg the author has in mind all along.

Particularly appealing is the manner in which Steinberg deploys the common literary device of appearing to tell other people's stories while slyly revealing much about his own life, which is both infinitely distant from and intimately similar to those of his library patrons.

[Book Concierge · Rating 2 out of 5]

After finishing Harvard and abandoning his Orthodox Jewish upbringing, Avi Steinberg found himself writing obituaries and avoiding any discussion of his goals in life. Feeling a bit lost and inadequate (his friends and classmates were attorneys, doctors, rabbis, etc), he took a job as a librarian in a Boston prison. He didn’t have a degree in library science, but then most of his “library patrons” were barely literate. And the job included health benefits.

I expected something more – perhaps some humorous anecdotes, or insight into Steinberg’s motivations, or those of the inmates or guards. But this was torturously slow to start, and I was bored for most of it. I persevered only because I needed it to fulfill a challenge. It didn’t really get interesting until about page 200. Some of the stories he related after that point were very touching and poignant, but in the end I’m feeling about as lost as Steinberg was at the beginning of the book. Now, CC Too Sweet’s “Memoir of a Pimp”? THAT I’d like to read …

Note: I used to work for the Division of Corrections. I’ve worked both in and outside the correctional facilities. When I was a probation/parole officer I handled a caseload of adult male felons (everything from worthless checks to murder). I don’t think I ever came across anyone so ill prepared and ill suited to working in the system as Steinberg.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A most excellent opening paragraph leads the way into a a book that's part memoir, part expose, and part biography of the prisoners Steinberg meets. It's funny and fascinating, but it's also thoughtful and poignant. If you're looking for answers one way or the other about prisoners and the prison system, this isn't your book. But if you're looking for a chance to meet some interesting people and see the impact of prison on them, them on prison, and all of it on a civilian employee, then definitely give this one a try.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was just delightful. Former Orthodox boy writes a memoir without being ridiculous, has a wacky job without being ridiculous, and has stuff to say, again, without being ridiculous. Also, it has the coolest cover, if not ever, then recently.

[Melanie Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update: I've now read this book a second time. I also started teaching in a prison this semester, so my view of the book has changed. The biggest things I noticed that irked me was how unsafe Steinberg was due to his careless decisions to let inmates get away with things. Breaking the rules is not only unsafe for him, but for other employees of the prison and the inmates. Furthermore, sometimes his diction is aggressive, and it's unclear if such wording comes from him or if he's trying to imitate prison slang. See the whole section about prison "queers," the outcasts of the outcasts.

RUNNING THE BOOKS BY AVI STEINBERG
Yoni: Avi’s Jewish friend who can’t keep his own life together but is a life coach in prison with Avi. He’s almost fired for swearing, making crude jokes, saying the n-word, and eating 30 cloves of fried garlic.

Chudney: Studies March of the Penguins with such focus (227) whereas other prisoners prefer violent animal/storm movies. Wants to be a chef and actually follows his plan of action out of prison until he is shot for nearly no reason.

PRISON STAFF
Linda: flirtatious dyed-blond Italian-American who dated mobsters
Diana: tough, older Albanian-American teacher former feminist
Patti: director of the prison’s Education Department, Avi’s supervisor
Charlie: Technically Patti’s supervisor, he’s the union boss. Loveable, politically incorrect grandfather-type
Gilmore: night-shift officer stationed outside library
Mike De Luca: day-shift officer stationed outside library
Forest: Librarian who worked in NYC library
Don Amato: former prison library who was promoted to director of inmate vocational training, has Master of Library Science
Officer Cuzzlewit: sprays fart gas during the movie and all prisoners are immediately unfocused (233)

USE OF PRISON LIBRARIES
Malcolm X came out as a civil rights leader
James “Whitey” Bulger studied military history and became FBI’s 2nd Most Wanted behind Bin Laden
Is making Plath’s work available encouraging inmates to kill themselves? p218

HOBBES GIRLS/FEMALE CW CLASS
Short: Likes to say “Bitch, I’m gonna cut your damn titties off!” and looks for fights
Nasty: Has cupcake hair-do and stares off without speaking a lot, but mean-spirited face
Brutish: Behaves like a frat boy, says whatever comes to mind, everything is shit, doesn’t socialize, fat
Poor: Friends with Brutish, fearful, skinny, needy (which is sometimes taken advantage of by Brutish)
Solitary/Jessica: Hard, proud, prim, trusts women who look busted up/not too pretty. Son is in prison, too. Quits coming to creative writing class b/c Avi won’t let her stare out window

MALE CW CLASS
C.C. Too Sweet: writing a pimp memoir, says pimping is an artform, loves words not guns
Chudney
Mumayne
Jason/JizzB
Frank: talks too much, esp about his dog and wife
Fernando

PRISONER LIBRARY WORKERS
Coolidge: Earned degree in prison, law clerk (good grasp of law), self-appointed elder statesman of group, quickly turns bully, helps inmates with legal questions. Fired for stealing in Katrina fundraiser.
Fat Kat: Street thug and druggie from the 80s who is playful, a vegetarian, loves National Geographic, and wants to relocate to the woods of Quebec
Elia: Quiet, mid-40s, has 4 yr old daughter, helped found a newspaper for homeless people, gentle, courtly, had drinking problem, trying to patch things up with his wife
Pitts: Flamboyant, handsome, high-roller, 35, ex-Navy, no kids unless married in effort to end generations of family disorder, likes women/gambling/booze/all-you-can-eat buffets, searching for authentic Christianity, prison barber

INTERESTING MOMENTS
When the male prisoners are seen holding and caring for dolls during class for no educational reason.

All the things prisoners will use to make weapons, including several magazines rolled/taped together.

The obituaries have a lot of people he knows (prison is the last stop before the grave) p 215

Al’s revelation that the joke at the end about the prunes is a metaphor for the entire book: “...in this life, a man don’t got to have all the answers....Maybe you went to rabbi school, or you’re an imam, or whatnot, but that don’t mean you know shit about no damn prunes.” 398-399

[Kkraemer · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a teacher, I have collected stories for years, and often use them as metaphors for thinking about my own life. Steinberg does the same, though his stories come from people whose lives, both inside prison and out, are intensely different from the students and teachers I've known all these years.

Steinberg is a prison librarian, a many devoted to offering stories to his clients and, as it turns out, to collecting these stories for making sense of the world. He introduces himself as a yeshiva drop-out who graduated Harvard with a senior thesis on Bugs Bunny and, with few professional options open, decides to get health insurance by taking a library job in a local prison. At first the book is funny and his observations wry; however, as the book unfolds, initial responses are revisited and viewed from slightly different perspectives as his own knowledge of the characters move from them being "characters" to them being people to them being somehow iconic about the way of the world. The chuckles are replaced by sobering reflection.

This is a great book. At the end, no tidy little wrap up...just situations and people that I will ponder for a long, long time.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

To sum this book up in one word: inconsistent. In detailing his two years as a librarian at a Boston jail, Mr. Steinberg – a Harvard grad and former yeshiva student – never quite settles on what he wants this memoir to be. There’s some decent stuff here, but the entire thing seems half finished, more rough drafts of pieces of a memoir than a finished product. I like books that capture both the humor and despair of a situation, that layer stories and subplots within the same pages, and while that seems to be the intention for this book, it lacks a theme and arc that make that sort of complexity click. Mr. Steinberg seems like a nice guy, and the book isn’t horrible – I just didn’t find it engaging enough to recommend, especially given its length. There are other books that better touch on many of the subjects raised in this book, and I think most readers would find them a better use of time. Not recommended.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me back to my days of teaching at the Maryland House of Correction (before I became a public defender). One learns the good and bad about folks in prison, and sees that "corrections" is the least concern of the facility. There are folks sincere about working on their cases, learning, being positive. There are folks plotting, scheming, hurting themselves and others. Light shines on the officers as well, some well-intentioned, others with a cruel streak. Steinberg has an interesting experience one night taking a shortcut through a park. He is robbed, and the assailant recognizes him as the "book guy." But, there's no Hollywood moment, no remorse, just a bit of a laugh as the robber leaves with the bit of cash he scored. For those who have never entered a prison, take a look at this story of the accidental librarian. You may be surprised at what you find in this land of books and prisoners.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd actually recently seen many average reviews of this book. So going into it I was very wary.

But Avi Steinberg writes in a wonderful way, showing the characters and depth of his experience as a prison librarian. A quirky read, it combines deep analysis into the prison system with personal stories about the inmates that Avi encountered.

It could honestly have had a bit more structure, and that's where it falls short. It does jump from stories to musings over the prison system to his Jewish heritage, and at times it does feel a bit disjointed.

But overall, the book is interesting. I'm hoping to go into the library sector myself as a career, and the look into something a bit off the wall in the job area is a great read.

Full of characters and in a really easy writing style, it's a great read that is oddly hard to put down. It isn't anything special, but its good fun and is an interesting topic!

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

It should first be noted that this book was not at all what I expected. I stumbled upon it in the library, shelved amid what would best be described as "books about books." That's what I expected of this, though, of course, with a prison bent. That is NOT what this book is about. The best comparison I can make is to "Orange is the New Black."

The first half of the book was much stronger than the last half. As other reviewers have said, it would have benefited greatly from some merciless editing.

Things that annoyed me:
1) He goes on at great length (and repeatedly) about how he used to be a highly devout Orthodox Jew. Yet, he never mentions the cause of his complete falling away from religion.
2) He doesn't mention why he leaves his prison job. There's just an epilogue, wherein he mentions running into a former inmate after he (the author) had left the prison. I was just annoyed by the lack of closure.

An okay book, but I can't think of anyone I'd recommend it to.

[Heidi · Rating 1 out of 5]

OK, I get it. You're kind of a weenie, you went to a good college, then had a lame job and decided to work as a prison librarian. And it was really scary and different.

By the end of the first third of the book I was done. This guy doesn't really have a story to tell. He just took a weird job.

[Lesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this started out great with the tales of these outcasts that go to the prison library. then I was losing interest fast toward the end of book!

[Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought I was reading a novel until I was about 60 pages into Running the Books, which is a testament to how well written this memoir is. I believe that good nonfiction should read like fiction and good fiction should read like nonfiction. In this regard, Running the Books was so bizarre and engaging that it fit the bill. Who could make this up? I was impressed by the way Steinberg tells a compelling story--beautiful at times as well as heartbreaking. I have read so many works of nonfiction that made me aware of the injustice of mass incarceration--The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander immediately comes to mind, and as thorough and enlightening as books like this are, none gave names, faces, and humanity to the prisoners themselves. They are people with families, loved ones, and dreams that they hope to accomplish after leaving prison. They are people who weep in darkness and solitude, as narrator Avi does when he is affected by the fates of his prison library patrons.

And that leads me to the power that drives this book. Avi is privileged in almost every sense of the word. He was raised a yeshiva Jew, and he graduated from an Ivy League school, but was not happy with how his life was going as an obituary writer after college, so he applies for the prison librarian job and surprisingly gets it. The book is an account of all of the fascinating people that cross his path and how each of them, in some way, teaches him what his role as prison librarian should be. In the world of prison, the rules are black and white, but Avi's education and idealism force him to navigate the gray areas, to figure out what his patrons need and how best to serve them. As he muses, "Everyone who enters a library is in search of *something*...Sometimes not even certain what they were looking for" (378). Not only is this a sort of coming of age story for Avi himself, but it will open your eyes if you dare about the men and women who serve time and the stories that brought them there.

Running the Books is also richly allusive, mentioning the rich literary history of Boston, Deer Island, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Sylvia Plath and how their works influence our understanding of incarceration. At one point, I feel a kinship between Avi and Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener at the dead letter office when he talks about his role as prison librarian: "I had intercepted so many misguided notes, witnessed so many unfinished, unsent, impossible letters...Books are not libraries--yes they are. It was a bit of graffiti I had often imagined scrawling in the margin of [my predecessor's] sign" (384). But for every note of despair in this book, there is an equal note of hope: "I thought of Hawthorne's description of the wild roses blooming next to this city's first prison, 'which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.' His prison rose bush struck me as a fine metaphor for a prison library, freely giving a small gift of beauty to a criminal...this tiny, freely given object of beauty, a rose (or a book), was fragile, a mere token--and probably nothing more" (393-394).

So in short, Running the Books is soulful, brilliant, heartbreaking, and definitely worth reading if you have a heart and courage to look truth squarely in the eye. This book is also darkly humorous and great fun. Steinberg is honest and brave in his telling of this story, and I highly recommend it!

[Alix · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was moved by the way Steinberg humanizes, indeed, personally invests himself in the lives, past and future of his patrons, otherwise known as prisoners. Much of the book involves sketching out for us their inescapably impoverished upbringings, their crimes, their innate intelligence, their comic foibles and ultimately their hopes for freedom and change. By interweaving these sketches with his ponderings about his past as a deeply religious teenager and his subsequent rejection of orthodoxy, Steinberg is able to create an ethical springboard for making decisions, usually for the betterment of the inmates in a no-win bureaucratic situation for himself. He includes some history of prisons describing their creepy architectural significance in relation to their purpose and their maddeningly dysfunctional and adversarial organizational composition. He also reveals that America has more prisons and prisoners than any other country on earth. I came away from this book with a fresh understanding of my luck in life and a deep sadness about the revolving prison door that ensnares many unfortunate people, especially those with the least advantages in our society.

[Emily Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

Avi Steinberg hails from a traditional Orthodox Judaism community. As an adolescent, he aspired to be a rabbi and committed himself to studying the Torah with an intensity that alarmed even his traditional parents. After graduating from high school, he defected from his community by choosing to attend Harvard rather than rabbi school. After graduating from Harvard, Steinberg found that all he had now was a senior thesis on the cultural importance of Bugs Bunny and a reputation at home for being a lapsed Jew. While his childhood friends go on to become doctors and lawyers and rabbis, Steinberg finds himself drifting and, on a whim, ends up answering a Craigslist ad for a post as a librarian at a Boston prison.

In this memoir, Steinberg depicts his life as a librarian for drug addicts, gang members and thugs, pimps, prostitutes, thieves, and various other prison-types. Through his role as prison librarian, he is both a jailer and an ally to the convicts who pass through his doors. He becomes a friend to a female drug addict who abandoned her son when he was an infant, and then ends up watching her son from afar as he is brought into the prison as an adult. He befriends and helps a convicted pimp write his memoirs, and then fights his conscience when he discovers that the pimp was trafficking unwilling, underage girls. He teaches creative writing classes, and tries to convince the male convicts that movie adaptations of Shakespeare's works are just as interesting as documentaries depicting lions tearing zebras into bloody bits.

This could easily have turned into one of those memoirs that is drowning in its own sappiness. Happily, it's not one of those memoirs. Although it has sort of a silly start where the author takes himself a bit too seriously, it eventually settles down into a very readable and touching story, without most of the cheesiness found in memoirs. It has its happy-life-lesson moments, certainly, but it also has plenty of reality check moments and moments where Steinberg is either stupid or an ass. His honesty is really what makes the book... in cases where he could save face by holding back or completely omitting a story, he instead chooses to tell the story with complete disclosure. As a Harvard graduate who'd led a fairly squeaky-clean life, it would have been easy for him to fall into the trap of unconsciously making himself seem superior to the criminals around them. Instead, Steinberg does a nice job of balancing his role as a mentor and also as a naive young adult getting his first taste of the underbelly of Boston.

Recommended reading for people with an interest in books and libraries, crime and criminal justice, psychology, memoirs, or just someone in search of a good read.