The Prison Book Club

The Prison Book Club
ISBN: 9781780748634
Publication Date: 25 May 2016

Read your favourite books as you've never read them before - over the shoulders of dangerous criminals.

Ten years ago Ann Walmsley was mugged outside her house in Hampstead. She suffered PTSD and for a long time afterwards was afraid to walk down the street alone.

A few years later, her friend Carol asked her to participate in a bold new venture in a men's medium security prison. Ann was initially apprehensive: did she really want to be surrounded by violent criminals Luckily, her curiosity won over, and she signed up for eighteen months, attending weekly meetings in a remote building a few hours outside of Toronto. There was no wine and cheese, plush furnishings or superficial chat about jobs or recent vacations. But a book club on the inside proved to be a place to share ideas, learn about each other and regain humanity. From The Grapes of Wrath to The Cellist of Sarajevo, and Outliers to Infidel, the book discussions became a springboard for frank conversations about loss, anger, redemption, heroism and loneliness.

We follow six book-club members who kept journals at Walmsley's request and participated in candid one-on-one conversations. Graham the biker, Frank the gunman, Ben and Dread the drug dealers, and the robber duo Gaston and Peter reveal their life stories and world views through their thoughts on a wide range of books and characters.

About the Author

Ann Walmsley is a magazine journalist whose work has appeared in The Globe and Mail and Maclean's. She is the recipient of four National Magazine Awards, a Canadian Business Journalism Award and two International Regional Magazine Awards. She founded her first book club at age nine.