It was the experience of reviewing Makes Me Wanna Holla: A Young Black Man in America, by Nathan McCall for a 2012 college class that made me want to write book reviews for San Quentin News.
After reading McCall, and re-living all his mistakes in life, I became hopeful and optimistic. “Never give up,” I told myself.
In finding the most important book reviewed for 2015, I looked for its impact on incarcerated people from a literary perspective. In other words, if someone locked up read this book, will doing so make him or her better?
The reason I want to draw attention to these books — we need to read more, especially the incarcerated.
On its face, this may seem strange that I would pick a book that says nothing about being locked up or the criminal justice system. However, the two runners-up deal directly with crime and punishment, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, Ursula Le Guin; and A Trial for Grace, Jessica Pishko.
So, why would I give What I Wish I Knew When I was 20, Tina Seelig, top honors for 2015?
Seelig, a college professor, had no idea that I’d read this book and found it very applicable to an audience she never intended to address.
As an incarcerated person, understanding where I failed in life is paramount to getting better.
“Failures offer learning opportunities and increase the chance that you won’t make the same mistake again,” Seelig writes.
For me the operant word in this sentence is “learning.”
I believe anyone, incarcerated or not, who takes the time to read Seelig’s book, would be steered into success.
What I did for this review is, after re-reading What I Wish I Knew When I was 20, I grabbed The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, then A Trial for Grace.
These three readings gave me an understanding of ethics, community, goodness and self.
At the end of reading these stories, I can say that I am hopeful and optimistic that in the 21st century, the public is beginning to understand the complexities behind the current criminal justice system and how to make it better.
Seelig, who has come inside San Quentin to take a look at one of its most promising programs, The Last Mile, has two new books out. Insight Out: Get Ideas out of Your Head and Into the World, refers to what she learned from her experience of visiting incarcerated Americans. The other book– inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity.
Juan’s Book Review
