PLP is an all-volunteer organization so needless to way we couldn’t send out thousands of books each year without so many people contributing in different ways to our efforts. Hear from a few of our volunteers…

Here are some of the lovely and much appreciated notes we’ve received from book recipients over recent months.

The picture above was the front of a card created and sent by the women who signed below.

Berkeley High students interested in law and social justice have participated in multiple book selection sessions this past year in coordination with another local social justice organization The Ahimsa Collective

The students were often intrigued by the letters they were responding to and did their best to find the most appropriate books to fulfil the sometimes very specific or broad requests.

The four students pictured here are off to college in the Fall. We hope they carry a little bit of their experience at PLP with them.

We look forward to hosting more student sessions next year!

We’re back again! And Independent Bookstore Day 2024 is your big opportunity to support local booksellers and stock up on new selections for yourself — and once again, for PLP as well.

From April 27th to May 14th, 2024, you can double your support for the Prisoners Literature Project. Just buy books for us to send to incarcerated folks from one of our independent Bay Area bookshop partners linked below.

When you buy books from the below independent bookshops, online or in person, a funder will generously match every purchase up to $1,000 per store! So you can, once again, double your impact:

Books Inc.  (online wishlist & in-store displays)
(Stores: 1491 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, 2483 Washington Ave, San Leandro)

East Bay Booksellers (online wishlist only)

Pegasus Books (online wishlist & in-store display)
(Stores: in downtown Berkeley at 2349 Shattuck Ave & at 1855 Solano Ave, Berkeley.)

Cape & Cowl Comics (in-store display only)
(Store: 1601 Clay St, Oakland)

These donated books will allow PLP to fulfill a range of requests from incarcerated letter writers, who often ask for the sought-after titles on these lists, which we have trouble fulfilling from regular donations.

The most common requests are for genre fiction (thrillers, romance, sci-fi/fantasy, etc), self-help, business, drawing, graphic novels, science, GED material, exercise, almanacs and so much more. People also ask for some very specific topics and we do our best to fulfill the spirit of the inquiry.

Here is a sample of letters that volunteers responded to recently.

Also we love that he shared it with others at his facility to enjoy.

Thick fantasy/sci-fi novels like “The Starless Crown” are a popular request from incarcerated readers. The more pages to escape into… Thanks again to Tor Publishing for donating multiple copies of this book to PLP!

We have wishlists at many of our bookstore partners!

Welcome to our last update of 2023. As the New Year approaches, we want to thank all of our co-ordinators, volunteers, bookstore partners, and donors for making it another very successful year sending free books to incarcerated folks in 49 U.S. states.

We recommend following our Instagram feed to keep up on the PLP. But here’s some highlights for the year:

– We sent out over 10,000 packages of new & used books into U.S. prisons, and truly matched books to the requests of so many – who would have otherwise gone without.
– We bolstered the books in our dedicated library space by getting donations from publishers like Tor & local bookstore partners (and even from Palm Springs!)
– We participated in local book fairs to spread the word and re-sell books we can’t otherwise send out!
– We hosted students from the social justice program at Berkeley High School, and will do more student sessions in 2024.
– We got some wonderful thank-you letters from incarcerated folks who are able to be inspired, learn new skills, or transport their minds with our books.

With thousands of hours of volunteering from those who help us pick and pack books yearly – not to mention the many generous donations you give – PLP’s outreach wouldn’t have been possible in 2023. So thank you!

Thanks to a kind donor, the matching for Prisoners Literature Project’s Giving Tuesday campaign has been upped to $5,500. So every dollar you give, up to $5.5k has its impact doubled, until Friday, Dec. 1st.

Reminder of our goal: to continue sending out  >1,000 free book packages every month to incarcerated folks in 49 U.S. states. But we’re running at a money deficit in 2023, for two reasons:

– Increased cost of postage: Postage for a 3 lb book package will increase over 16% in January 2024 from late January 2021.
– increased cost for books: Each year more institutions accept only new books, and more people inside are requesting specific new books to help them develop skills for employment when they are released.

So we’re asking:

Donate before Friday to double your impact!
(Donations are tax-deductible. Debit cards, credit cards, and PayPal accepted – please contact us if you want to donate a different way.)

PS – here’s an excerpt from the thank-you letter shown above: “I am grateful and appreciative of the work you do. I am … serving a lengthy sentence, and honestly reading a good book, or any for that matter, has been my daily escape. I wasn’t much of a reader before, but three years into my incarceration and I’ve turned into a bibliophile. I found out about your organization through a book titled ‘The Sentences That Create Us.’ It was given to me by my cellmate as a parting gift when he was transferred to a different prison…. I wish I would have known about you sooner.”