The Prison Book Club (39 page)

Larson, Erik.
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin.
New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2012.

Larsson, Stieg.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Toronto: Penguin Group Canada, 2011.

Lawes, Lewis E.
Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing.
London: Constable & Co., 1932.

Lee, Harper.
To Kill a Mockingbird.
New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1988.

Lehane, Dennis.
Shutter Island.
New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009.

Levy, Andrea.
The Long Song.
New York: Penguin Publishing Group Canada, 2011.

Levy, Andrea.
Small Island.
New York: Headline Publishing Group, 2009.

Martel, Yann.
Life of Pi.
Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2002.

McCarthy, Cormac.
All the Pretty Horses.
Toronto: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1993.

McCarthy, Cormac.
The Road.
Toronto: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007.

McCourt, Frank.
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir.
New York: Scribner, 1999.

McEwan, Ian.
Saturday.
Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2006.

Michaels, Anne.
Fugitive Pieces.
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2009.

Mistry, Rohinton.
A Fine Balance.
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1997.

Mistry, Rohinton.
Such a Long Journey.
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1997.

Mnookin, Seth.
The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy.
New York: Simon & Schuster, Incorporated, 2012.

Montefoschi, Giorgio.
Lo Sguardo del Cacciatore.
New York: Rizzoli, 1987.

Moore, Lisa.
Caught.
Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2013.

Moore, Robin, with Barbara Fuca.
Mafia Wife.
London: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1977.

Mortenson, Greg.
Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan
. New York: Penguin Books 2009.

Mortenson, Greg, and David Oliver Relin.
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time.
New York: Penguin Books, 2007.

Nafisi, Azar.
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books.
New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2003.

Nafisi, Azar.
Things I've Been Silent About.
New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2010.

Nordhoff, Charles, and James Norman Hall, adapted by Kenneth W. Fitch.
Classics Illustrated No. 100, Mutiny on the Bounty.
Illustration by Henry C. Kiefer and Morris Waldinger. New York: Gilberton Co., 1950.

Nordhoff, Charles, and James Norman Hall.
Mutiny on the Bounty.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1932.

Obama, Barack.
Dreams from My Father.
New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2004.

Orwell, George.
Animal Farm.
New York: Penguin Books, 2008.

Portis, Charles.
True Grit
. New York: The Overlook Press, 2012.

Rice, Connie.
Power Concedes Nothing.
New York: Scribner, 2014.

Robbins, Harold.
A Stone for Danny Fisher.
New York: Touchstone, 2007.

Salinger, J.D.
The Catcher in the Rye.
New York: Little Brown & Company, 1991.

Setterfield, Diane.
The Thirteenth Tale.
Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2013.

Shaffer, Mary Ann, and Annie Barrows.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2009.

Stegner, Wallace.
Crossing to Safety.
New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2002.

Steinbeck, John.
Cannery Row.
New York: Penguin Books, 1992.

Steinbeck, John.
Of Mice and Men.
New York: Penguin Books, 1993.

Steinbeck, John.
The Grapes of Wrath.
New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2006.

Steinberg, Avi.
Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian.
Toronto: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010.

Stevenson, Robert Louis.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
. New York: Penguin Books, 2012.

Stevenson, Robert Louis.
Treasure Island.
New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 1994.

Swarup, Vikas.
Six Suspects.
New York: HarperCollins, 2011.

Swarup, Vikas.
Slumdog Millionaire.
New York: HarperCollins, 2008.

Swift, Jonathan.
Gulliver's Travels.
New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2003.

Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit.
New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Twain, Mark.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
New York: Penguin Classics, 2002.

Vásquez, Juan Gabriel.
The Sound of Things Falling.
London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013.

Vonnegut, Kurt.
Player Piano.
New York: Random House Publishing Group, 1999.

Walls, Jeannette.
The Glass Castle: A Memoir.
New York: Scribner, 2006.

Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau.
New York: Dover Publications, 1996.

Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
. Eastford: Martino Fine Books, 2011.

Wurtzel, Elizabeth.
Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women.
Toronto: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1999.

Yeats, W.B. “Under Ben Bulben.”
The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1950.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

M
Y fiRST ACKNOWLEDGMENT goes to the men in the prison book clubs at Collins Bay and Beaver Creek for their warm welcome and for putting me at ease. It was a privilege to have spent time with them. I am particularly grateful for the trust and generosity of those who agreed to be interviewed and who kept journals about their reading. Thank you above all to Ben, Dread, Frank, Gaston, Graham and Peter. I hope we will continue our journey in books together.

This book could not have been written without the equally generous access provided by Correctional Service Canada. Thanks especially to Kevin Snedden and Charles Stickel, who were the wardens at Collins Bay and Beaver Creek, but also to officials at the regional and national levels who approved access. I send thanks, as well, to the chaplains in each institution, for cheerfully hosting the space for my interviews, which meant additional administrative work for them, and to the Collins Bay prison librarian, who gave me insight into the prison book culture.

My Toronto women's book club granted me permission to write about three book club meetings in which we read the same books as the men in the Collins Bay Book Club, for which I am very appreciative.

I am also deeply indebted to my writers group, The Ridge Group, now celebrating its tenth anniversary: Brigid Higgins, Peggy Lampotang, Mike MacConnell and Susan Noakes. When I was writing four chapters a month they agreed to read along at that pace, and their comments helped me to apply the techniques of fiction to a non-fiction book.

I consider myself very fortunate to have as my agent and mentor the smart and very capable Hilary McMahon, at Westwood Creative Artists. She supported the project at its earliest stages and challenged me to move beyond my training as a journalist to express my reactions to experiences in the prisons and incorporate more elements of memoir. The agency's Lien de Nil worked through a terrible cold following the Frankfurt Book Fair to orchestrate the initial sale on the international rights side. I am incredibly grateful to them both.

I am thrilled to have found a home with the great publishing teams at Penguin Canada and Oneworld, in the U.K. Diane Turbide, my wonderful editor at Penguin, offered invaluable editorial advice early on and solid support throughout. Oneworld publisher Juliet Mabey has been an inspiring collaborator whose early interest in the project encouraged me to tell the U.K. part of the story more fully. Copy editor Chandra Wohleber's detailed read helped immeasurably. Also vital at Penguin were publisher Nicole Winstanley, publicist Emma Ingram, senior production editor Sandra Tooze and many others. I am fortunate as well to have in my camp Oneworld publicist Lamorna Elmer, a poet in her own right, and the rest of the team at Oneworld.

Many thanks to the author Roddy Doyle, for permission to use his emailed answers to the inmates' questions about
The Woman Who Walked Into Doors
. Thanks too to Lawrence Hill, for allowing me to cover his author visit to the Collins Bay Book Club and agreeing to be interviewed afterward.

I would like to thank Carol Finlay for inviting me to participate in the prison book clubs she organized at Collins Bay and Beaver Creek. She and her husband, Bryan, hosted me with great warmth at their Amherst Island home on numerous occasions during the research for this book so that I could combine my visits to the book club with follow-up interviews with the men and with Carol.

My parents encouraged me to write and nurtured my love of books and nature. They also taught me invaluable lessons about trust. I am grateful to them and to my brothers, who took on additional family duties during the period when I was writing intensively.

To my precious children, you are my best cheering section, and offered great insights into the universal themes in this book. You also have my back and I love you fiercely.

My beloved husband, Bruce, made the manuscript many times better. He was my first and most dedicated reader. In the final editing stages, we sat across from each other at our dining room table, reading each chapter aloud and discussing it line by line. His constant love and support gave me the time I needed for research and writing. Without him, this book would have been impossible.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ann Walmsley is a magazine journalist and the recipient of four National Magazine Awards. A former book review columnist, she founded her first book club at age nine and has been a member of five other book clubs including two in the UK. She lives in Toronto.