He shared with the Christian Science Monitor a list of over a dozen books he considered assigning to a group of inmate-students. Invitation to a Beheading and Darkness at Noon did not make the final cut, but the following did:"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"Read about another book that made Cooper's final cut.
The inmate-students were impressed by biographical materials that corroborated Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s personal ordeals in gulag labor camps and his live-to-tell-about-it survivorship. They got this straightforward linear recounting of deprivations and resourcefulness. They were keen on offering their takes on meager food and pilfered parcels and tedious regimens. They claimed to know from hoarding food and sick-outs, from checking emotions and summoning restraint; from endurance and mental toughness; and some do indeed take pride in even the menial tasks they ascend to in the prison work ladder.
Also see: Six books every prison should stock.
--Marshal Zeringue
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