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.