Audio only
The Maximum Security Book Club
Reading Literature in a Men's PrisonBy Mikita BrottmanNarrated by Beverley A. Crick
Length7h 8m
About this audiobook
A riveting account of the two years literary scholar Mikita Brottman spent reading literature with criminals in a maximum-security men’s prison outside Baltimore, and what she learned from them—Orange Is the New Black meets Reading Lolita in Tehran.
On sabbatical from teaching literature to undergraduates, and wanting to educate a different kind of student, Mikita Brottman starts a book club with a group of convicts from the Jessup Correctional Institution in Maryland. She assigns them ten dark, challenging classics—including Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Poe’s story “The Black Cat,” and Nabokov’s Lolita—books that don’t flinch from evoking the isolation of the human struggle, the pain of conflict, and the cost of transgression. Although Brottman is already familiar with these works, the convicts open them up in completely new ways. Their discussions may “only” be about literature, but for the prisoners, everything is at stake.
Gradually, the inmates open up about their lives and families, their disastrous choices, their guilt and loss. Brottman also discovers that life in prison, while monotonous, is never without incident. The book club members struggle with their assigned reading through solitary confinement; on lockdown; in between factory shifts; in the hospital; and in the middle of the chaos of blasting televisions, incessant chatter, and the constant banging of metal doors.
Though The Maximum Security Book Club never loses sight of the moral issues raised in the selected reading, it refuses to back away from the unexpected insights offered by the company of these complex, difficult men. It is a compelling, thoughtful analysis of literature—and prison life—like nothing you’ve ever read before.
Audiobook details
GenreLiterary Classics, Biography and Memoir, Psychology
Length7 hrs 8 mins
Narrated byBeverley A. Crick
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateJun 7, 2016
LanguageEnglish
L. M. Montgomery – Premium Collection: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry & MemoirsLucy Maud Montgomery155h 55m$2 · $0.00
MARK TWAIN: 12 Novels, 195 Short Stories, Autobiography, 10 Travel Books, 160+ Essays & Speeches (Illustrated)Mark Twain416h 24m5 (2)$2 · $0.00
The Great Gatsby: Original 1925 Edition (An F. Scott Fitzgerald Classic NovelFrancis Scott Fitzgerald4h 45m$18 · $0.00
Louisa May Alcott: 16 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated Edition)Louisa May Alcott141h 35m$2 · $0.00
The Fire Next TimeJames Baldwin2h 25m$15
The Complete Works of Oscar WildeOscar Wilde80h 38m$1 · $0.00
The Complete Books of F. Scott Fitzgerald (all his 5 novels + all 4 short story collections published during his lifetime)F. Scott Fitzgerald86h 48m$2 · $0.00
The Count of Monte Cristo (With Original Illustrations)Alexandre Dumas54h 7m$1 · $0.00
Braving the TruthRachel Held Evans11h 31m$29 · $0.00
Richard Wagamese SelectedRichard Wagamese3h 14m$15
Shōgun, Part OneJames Clavell24h 19m$35
Henry V (The Play, Historical Background and Analysis of the Character in the Play)William Shakespeare, William Hazlitt8h 40m$1 · $0.00
Pathways to LightPrakash Amte7h 6m$8
The North American Indian (Illustrated Edition)Edward S. Curtis, Frederick Webb Hodge6h$2 · $0.00
The Complete Novels of Leo Tolstoy in One Premium Edition (World Classics Series)Leo Tolstoy213h 41m$2 · $0.00
The Holy BibleKing James99h 50m$12 · $0.00
The Complete Novels of the Brontë Sisters (8 Novels: Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, The Professor, Emma, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall)Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë118h 9m$2 · $0.00
The Greatest Works of Jules VerneJules Verne247h 39m$2 · $0.00
The Complete Works of G. K. ChestertonG. K. Chesterton421h 4m$2 · $0.00
Time RegainedMarcel Proust15h 54m$2 · $0.00
Left for DeadEbony Canion5h 34m$17
Invisible StormJason Kander6h 48m$24 · $0.00
Forever BoyKate Swenson9h 27m$29 · $0.00
You Are Worth ItKyle Carpenter, Don Yaeger8h 53m$29 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m$40 · $0.00
Evidence Not SeenDarlene Deibler Rose11h 11m$29 · $0.00
A Bridge Not Too FarDeepak Ohri4h 55m$15
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m$20 · $0.00
Will You Love Me?Cathy Glass9h 5m$29 · $0.00
Designing Terry Pratchett’s DiscworldPaul Kidby3h 52m$20 · $0.00
HostageEli Sharabi5h 25m$24 · $0.00
A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings With George Müller (The Complete Four-Volume Edition)George Müller43h 39m$2 · $0.00
Finding MeViola Davis9h 15m5 (1)$29 · $0.00
Scandal Between the Sheets & Stranded with the Tempting StrangerBrenda Jackson9h 22m$24 · $0.00
The Boys and MeMark Miller8h 32m$23
The Dangerous Truth about Today’s MarijuanaLaura Stack CSP, MBA9h 57m$20 · $0.00
Birdie & HarlowTaylor Wolfe7h 50m$26 · $0.00
The Lives of BrianBrian Johnson9h 45m$29 · $0.00
I Am The StormJanice Dean9h$8 · $0.00
TerraformPropaganda5h 39m$24 · $0.00
Hour of the HeartIrvin D. Yalom, Benjamin Yalom8h 19m$26 · $0.00
The Thomas Sowell ReaderThomas Sowell14h 51m$25
So You Want to Talk about RaceIjeoma Oluo7h 41m$17
Braving the TruthRachel Held Evans11h 31m$29 · $0.00
Level UpRob Dial7h 42m$26 · $0.00
As a JewSarah Hurwitz8h 36m$26 · $0.00
The North American Indian (Illustrated Edition)Edward S. Curtis, Frederick Webb Hodge6h$2 · $0.00
Burn the HaystackJennie Young, PhD9h 30m$29 · $0.00
Good InsideBecky Kennedy9h 55m$29 · $0.00
Du Bois: EssaysW.E.B. Du Bois6h 23m$1 · $0.00
Valley of the BirdtailAndrew Stobo Sniderman, Douglas Sanderson10h 1m$29 · $0.00
Lies My Therapist Told MeGreg E. Gifford9h 3m$29 · $0.00
Nobody Knows My NameJames Baldwin5h 49m$17
Start Here Start NowLiz Kleinrock4h 20m$20
The Collected Works of Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud112h 54m$2 · $0.00
Man's Search for MeaningViktor E. Frankl5h 44m$20
Abolition. Feminism. Now.Angela Y. Davis, Erica Meiners, Beth Richie, Gina Dent5h 4m$15
Becoming AbolitionistsDerecka Purnell14h 24m$23
Consent Laid BareChanel Contos7h 11m$24 · $0.00
You may also like
The House of the DeadFyodor Dostoevsky11h 21m$8 · $0.00
The ComplicationsEmmett Rensin12h 56m$33 · $0.00
Notes from a Dead HouseFyodor Dostoevsky13h 32m$20
Tales of Incarceration and Escape – 3 Classic Captivity NovelsFyodor Dostoevsky, Leonid Andreyev, Jack London32h 32m$1
The House of the DeadFyodor Dostoyevsky12h 15m$2.30
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND & THE HOUSE OF THE DEADFyodor Dostoyevsky17h 27m$2 · $0.00
Notes from Underground & The House of the DeadFyodor Dostoyevsky18h 31m$1 · $0.00
Fifty Years in ChainsCharles Ball11h 25m$2 · $0.00
Dancing BearsWitold Szabłowski6h 48m$20
The Night Side of LondonJ. Ewing Ritchie5h 4m$2 · $0.00
2009 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)United States Department of State6h 47m$2 · $0.00
American Slavery as It isTheodore Dwight Weld22h 31m$1 · $0.00
The Subterranean BrotherhoodJulian Hawthorne6h 47m$2 · $0.00
American Slavery as It is: TestimoniesTheodore Dwight Weld22h 30m$2 · $0.00
The People of the AbyssJack London6h 21m$5 · $0.00
Three SoldiersJohn Dos Passos15h 30m$2.30
On LibertyJohn Mill4h 35m$4 · $0.00
Ralph RashleighJames Tucker16h 31m$1 · $0.00
Autobiography of an AndrogyneEarl Lind9h 9m$2 · $0.00
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn21h 54m$46 · $0.00