From Kathy Kelly, just before she finished serving a three-month prison sentence for protesting the U.S. drone war at a military base in Missouri. Originally posted on the Voices For Creative Nonviolence website here.
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Thanks to generosity of people “outside,” I’ve been able to read about two dozen books here in Atwood Hall. Many other books have been sent. Books I had already read were given to other prisoners or donated, as gifts, to the prison library. Still others remain in my locker and under my bed, waiting to be read. Many thanks! The books have generated interesting conversations and helped build a lovely “book club” atmosphere which I’ll genuinely miss.

The first book I read here came from the prison library, – I so strongly want to recommend it, so I’ll start this list with

• The Empire of Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• A Curse on Dostoevsky by Atiq Rahimi
• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
• Binding Their Wounds: America’s Assault on its Veterans by Robert J. (Doc) Topmiller and Thomas Kerby Neill
• Christian Economics by Dale Pivarunas
• Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima
• Green on Blue: A Novel by Elliot Ackerman
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
• Lamentation by C.J. Sansom
• Lila: A Novel by Mariane Robinson
• Memed My Hawk by Yashar Kemal
• No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes by Anand Gopal
• Paul Chan: Selected Writings 2000-2014 by Paul Chan
• Reality, Grief, Hope by Walter Brueggemann
• The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje
• The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon
• The Earth Belongs to Everyone by Alanna Hartzok
• The Empires’ Edge: Militarization, Resistance, and Transcending Hegemony in the Pacific by Sasha Davis
• The Lizard Cage (rereading) by Karen Connolly
• The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence by Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros
• The Lowlands by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Perfect Gentleman: A Muslim Boy Meets the West by Imran Ahmad
• The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam by Bao Ninh
• The Sting of the Drone: A Novel by Richard Clark
• Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Maathai