Prison reading groups

Selina Walker and Sarah Turvey have two very different jobs, but share the same purpose: to connect readers with the best books and to champion reading for pleasure. Selina is the publisher of Century and Arrow, imprints at Penguin Random House, and Sarah is the Director and Founder of Prison Reading Groups, which is part of Give a Book – a charity that promotes books and the pleasures of reading in prisons, and to disadvantaged adults and children throughout the UK.

Alongside Sarah, Selina volunteers for Prison Reading Groups, joining a book discussion every month with around ten to twelve prisoners at HMP Wandsworth.

They both sat down together to share some of their thoughts and experiences of the programme, such as what takes place in a book club session and the benefits of volunteering, and to reflect on the impact that books can have on the world.

Selina: Sarah, you started the Prison Reading Groups – what was the catalyst for that?

Sarah: I taught English Literature at the University of Roehampton. My former colleague Jenny Hartley and I started doing research in the late nineties into the growing phenomenon of reading groups, which seemed to be taking off everywhere; front rooms, pubs, oil rigs, you name it. It occurred to us that the benefits we were seeing and learning about could possibly be experienced by prisoners too, and decided we would try to start reading groups in prison. We had two basic principles:

First, we wanted them to be voluntary and informal. No tests, no certificates, no right answers, no wrong answers. It was really important to us that this didn’t feel like a class, which for many prisoners brings up memories of alienation and failure.

Second, we wanted to offer choice. We wanted members to choose the books they read. You don’t have much choice in prison, and becoming a reader is about just that.

Selina: And what was the next step, as it can be difficult to work with prisons?

Sarah: Yes, there was the tremendous challenge of getting into prisons. But through contacts at our local prisons we ourselves got in to volunteer, and it went from there.

We were so fortunate and still are, with terrific librarians, who have continued to be the key to the success of our groups. From there it just grew, and here we are now: 20 years later and supporting 57 groups in around 40 prisons.

Selina: It’s always seemed to me that reading and literacy are so important to help the prison population. Is it frustrating for you that it’s funded so poorly?

Sarah: Yes, absolutely. So much of what could make a big difference in prison isn’t well funded. It’s not always well supported or believed in. There is a lot of scepticism about what something like Prison Reading Groups is for, or the idea that prisoners would even be interested in getting together to talk about books.

Selina: What makes it worthwhile to you? When you come out to the prison, which can be a draining experience, what makes you feel good?

Sarah: Well, prisons, as we know, can be very dark places. By definition prisoners are cut off from the outside world, from people, from their families, their children. I think, quite often, they’re cut off from themselves. They become a number and a criminal. What books do, by contrast, is to open up the world and light it up. Isn’t that why any of us read?

It’s actually watching that process of people becoming readers, for me. Seeing the world in new ways, discovering they have a voice, that they have something to say, learning to listen to other people talk about those things – and laughing too, there’s often laughing. There’s nothing like it actually.

And there are some amazing successes with authors too. Not so long ago, Anthony Horowitz came into Wandsworth Prison for an event in the library. The men rose to it perfectly, and Anthony was fantastic. It’s a huge treat for prisoners and particularly for the reading group – it’s a kind of validation of them as proper readers, that an author is prepared to come in from outside and talk to them. And crucially, of course, listen to their views.

Can you remember when you first started volunteering nearly three years ago, and what the first visit was like?

Selina: I can remember very clearly what I felt like. The first thing I was amazed by, and shocked by, was the sheer amount of security that we had to go through. There were the huge gates and walls and doors, several layers of them, before we actually permeated the inner sanctum of the prison itself.

It’s also the noise, I think. All a prisoner has to do is kick his door or shout; sometimes they scream and it just echoes throughout the whole building. It’s not a great experience.

Saying all that, and that’s all quite negative, I’m always amazed at how smiley the men are, how pleased they are to see us, how appreciative of the books. We are seeing people at the outer edges of their endurance, and yet they are the gracious ones. All the books themselves are given to the men afterwards, and I think that for them to have something of their own to keep, that seems to me a very positive thing.

Sarah: Can you say a bit more about how the group works when we get there?

Selina: We generally have between ten and twelve people; every group has a different dynamic and we all sit around in a circle. A volunteer always leads the discussion and we go around saying what we thought about the book. The key thing is how very varied the reading experience is. I always think it gives the group an element of unknowability and unpredictability. It makes every experience quite different and I really love that.

Sarah: We have had some really memorable discussions. What about The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe?

Selina: What was so intense about that experience was, of course, reading it behind bars. The men themselves brought a degree of emotion and identification about that situation and found enormous inspiration and comfort in what they were reading.

Sarah: I remember someone reading out his favourite bits, always a great moment in a meeting. One of the group was a Polish prisoner who said that he’d been to Auschwitz when he was seven and how a part of that place always inhabited a corner of his mind.

Another young man who had probably been excluded from school from the age of ten onwards, and had thus missed the lessons in which the Second World War and the Holocaust was discussed, didn’t even know it had happened. It was an extraordinary meeting.

Selina: Yes, he said, ‘Did this actually happen?’ You and I were quite surprised. Afterwards I thought, well actually that’s quite an entitled view of me to take. Why would he have known if he hadn’t learnt about it?

Sarah: Out of that meeting also came a comment that has lived with me ever since. A man said, ‘Do you know what happens when you read this book? It’s you you come up against,’ he said, ‘A wall of introspection.’

He continued, ‘You take that female hairdresser, that woman who turns Nazi and then executioner in Auschwitz. Well, she’d have just been an ordinary German, in another life, wouldn’t she? It’s a very difficult thing to face.’

That’s lived with me as, of course, that’s what books can do. Hearing it in action there was extraordinary.

Selina: Another book that had a massive impact was Circe by Madeline Miller. I did wonder, what are the men going to think about this? It’s a very female book, quite complicated and fantastical. And they loved it.

Sarah: Yes. They loved the writing and the myth-making. There was a man who turned out to be completely addicted to the classical world and to historical novels around it. He revealed in the course of the discussion that he had read The Odyssey, and his comment was, ‘Oh guys, you’re going to love it. It’s sick!’ Then he revealed that he was also an enormous fan of David Gemmell. When Selina said that she had been David Gemmell’s editor, I thought he was going to explode with delight.

Selina: As publishers, our day-to-day jobs are all about producing these books. I think it’s very easy to get distanced from the fact that actually books can change people’s lives, and what a huge difference they can make. I’m in the privileged position of, once a month, being brought very close to that difference and I feel very honoured to be in that situation.

Sarah: We are extremely grateful and proud to be working with Penguin Random House. It’s been a terrific partnership for us, and long may it continue.