It’s time for our annual #GivingTuesday campaign, and we at Prisoners Literature Project have again put together $2,500 in matching funds, so the dollars you donate can be doubled from now until the end of December.

As many of our supporters know, we rely solely on donations from individuals and organizations to continue sending >3,000 books to incarcerated folks every single month. Key facts for you:

– PLP is an all-volunteer organization with no paid staff. 
– All money goes directly to postage, books and rent for our office and library. 
– PLP has been sending books to readers in 50 states for over 35 years now! 

We strongly believe that everyone has the right to read, and it’s been a frustrating year at times, since restrictions on incoming books imposed by each state’s department of corrections (DOC) frequently change. 

More recently, authorities in several states including Connecticut, Wisconsin and now Colorado require that all books be NEW!  This is really unfortunate, because new books are more expensive and harder to source. (You can read about some of the books PLP regularly purchases due to popular demand.)

Help us continue to stock these books in support of our mission to to find ways to get a variety of books into the hands of readers behind bars. There are many carceral institutions that lack libraries (or have poorly stocked libraries), and lack relevant education programs.

So once again, if you can help us out, please:

Donate to PLP now!
(Debit cards, credit cards, and PayPal accepted – please contact us if you want to donate a different way!)

NOTE: All of your donations are tax-deductible – Prisoners Literature Project is an exempt organization as described in Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code; EIN# 87-2253705

Prisoners Literature Project sends out over 30,000 books a year! There are a huge range of topics requested by incarcerated readers. We do our best to stock books in some of the more popular areas. These includes thrillers, fiction, science fiction, fantasy, romance, history, self-help, business, graphic novels and much more. What we have on hand is somewhat at the whim of current book donations. However, PLP does buy books via remainder and other sources because we want to sent quality items that meet the request.

Here are a few such titles that we thought we’d share.

People in prison want to write whether it be memoirs, fiction, poetry, screenplays or song lyrics.

Many incarcerated people are keen to learn a new language. Books related to learning Spanish are most commonly asked for. Prisons have started to ban foreign language books because they are considered a security threat. However, Spanish is so prevalent in the U.S. that it seems to make it through the censors.

For years PLP has received requests for books about coding. They have been prohibitively expensive. We are so glad to have this Intro to Python Programming book to send. PLP received permission from the author to print it so we publish it ourselves.

A necessary book. People in prison have time to work on their education but don’t always have the resources available to them. We have many copies of this GED book to send.

We are pleased with this new large print book section in our library. We have struggled to fill large print requests in the past but now we have a selection!

Self-help books are one of our top requests. The market is flooded with such books and quality may vary. So, we purposefully purchase some books that we know are providing solid information. These are some of our favorite books to pass along to seekers.

Yes, we receive a flow of request for conspiracy-related topics. They trend in prisons. It’s hard to find books to send that counter these ideas but we do send a handout which explains why we don’t send such books.

This newly available re-entry book is a great resource. It has been put together by the Education Justice Project which is a part of the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The group granted us permission to produce copies. Such books are really sought after and having a current resource to send makes us all happy.

Ah, the ever popular yet elusive almanac — a 1,000+ pages of facts, history, current events and more. It’s the closest thing we stock to an encyclopedia or the internet in one volume. Volunteers joke that almanacs are a gold ticket as they’re expensive to source and infrequently on the shelves. Recent money donations allowed us to order 250 copies. Yay! They will go quickly!

Sure, why not? There is an ever growing genre micro categorization and when we started getting regular requests from letter writers for paranormal romance we took action. PLP volunteers regularly find these books at friends of the library sales for $1-2 which is a nice price.

The first amendment grants prisoners the right to practice the religion of their choice. Pagan/Wiccan has rituals that a single person can participate in. We were getting so many letters asking for this subject that PLP compiled this edition based on open source articles which we print regularly. This edition is now specifically requested by people in prison. Word gets out about a good thing.

Loving the support of another Books Inc. location in Alameda! Stop by and check it out and enjoy the nearby restaurants, outdoor seating, theatre and movieplex, and much more. It’s a fun place to hangout.

Help PLP and support a local independent bookstore first opened in 1851!

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!