🍃🌿🌱🐞 Stacy's Idea Garden 🐞🌱🌿🍃

Running the Books is a memoir about Avi Steinberg’s stint as a prison librarian in Boston. I found this one in the non-fiction section of my local library, but it read more like a novel.

Since this is a memoir, it’s difficult to criticize it. It contains many disjoint narratives, some of which are dropped when Avi loses touch with the inmates. Other subplots are resolved as Avi grows with his job. A few points are mentioned but left mostly unexplored, like the way that Steinberg’s job effected his relationship with his girlfriend and wether or not they eventually got engaged. She is a real person, though, and not a character, so it makes a certain amount of sense that this particular plotline isn’t resolved by the end of the book.

I read this book on a whim and it delivered on it’s promise of being entertaining. If I’ve got one criticism, it’s that this book could have focused a bit more on the the library in the prison and a bit less on prison life. Sometimes it felt like I was watching reality TV through Steinberg’s edit.

I also read a lot of critical reviews of this book after I finished reading it. Many negative reviewers took issue with the author’s use of his Jewish upbringing and his relationships with and descriptions of inmates and correctional staff. I read it as being appropriately respectful and self-aware, but the book is a little bit “The Devil Wears Prada” sometimes. To some people, there is no respectful way for a person in a position of authority to discuss their relationship to the power structures of which they are a part.

Review: 4.5/5, it was funny, interesting, and very easy to read.