A community-based book club themed around incarceration and reentry.
The intention of the RISE Reads book club is to create conversation, build empathy, challenge ones thinking, brainstorm together, and connect on a deeper level.
RISE selects a book to read at the beginning of each quarter based around the themes of incarceration, criminal justice, reentry, etc. We will email the titles to you and share them in our private Facebook Group.
How you choose to read each book is up to you! Each title is a self-paced read.
At the end of each quarter, we will recap what we've read as a group over Zoom and eventually (circumstances-willing) in-person. If you don't complete the book by the end of the quarter, that's ok! We'd still LOVE for you to join the conversation!
We also have a RISE Reads Facebook Group to keep a continuous dialog going of what we're reading!
Join the Facebook Group here!
Sign up below!
What we've read:
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2022: Q3 Second Chance Club
By Jason Hardy
A former parole officer shines a bright light on a huge yet hidden part of our justice system through the intertwining stories of seven parolees striving to survive the chaos that awaits them after prison.
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2022: Q2 Sparrow in the Razor Wire
By Quan Huynh
A powerful and personal memoir about courage, vulnerability, and redemption, Quan Huynh illustrates his lifelong process of transformation through a fifteen years to life sentence after shooting and killing a man in a gang-related incident in Hollywood, California.
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2022: Q1 Halfway Home
By Reuben Jonathan Miller
Reuben Jonathan Miller is a former chaplain at the Cook County Jail in Chicago and a sociologist studying mass incarceration. Halfway Home captures the stories Miller has collected of people impacted by incarceration and the system consistently fighting against them.
Halfway Home has been described as a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the American crisis of mass incarceration.
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2021: Q4 Waiting for an Echo
By Christine Montross, M.D.
Waiting for an Echo takes a rare glimpse at incarceration in the United States. Psychiatrist and author, Christine Moss, spent her career treating severely ill psychiatric patients and began investigating why her patients got caught up in the legal system after being released from her care.
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2021: Q3 Law Man: Memoir of a Jailhouse Lawyer
By Shon Hopwood
Law Man: Memoir of a Jailhouse Lawyer is a truly compelling, personal story of curiosity, education, productivity, and rebuilding a future. In this memoir, Hopwood shares how his life changed from being a "good kid from a good Nebraska family" to serving ten years in federal prison and learning to help others in the process.
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2021: Q2 Prison by Any Other Name
By Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law
An interesting and powerful book exploring alternatives to incarceration and the true impact they have on those cycling through the system.
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2021: Q1 Writing My Wrongs
By Shaka Senghor
Writing My Wrongs is a New York Times Bestseller - an unforgettable story about Shaka Senghor's nineteen-year incarceration and his experience with poverty, violence, fear, and redemption.
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2020 Q4: Solitary
Solitary is a powerful and unforgettable story about the life of Albert Woodfox, a man that spent more than four decades in solitary confinement for a crime he didn't commit. Join the RISE Reads book club to recap this book about race, justice, transformation and humanity.
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2020: Q3 The Master Plan
By Chris Wilson
An inspiring memoir about Chris Wilson's life and his personal journey through violence, incarceration, self improvement and social entrepreneurship.
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2020: Q2 Until We Reckon
By Danielle Sered
Until We Reckon takes a look at violence, mass incarceration, restorative justice and repairing communities.
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2020: Q1 Becoming Ms. Burton
By Susan Burton
One woman's remarkable odyssey from tragedy to prison to recovery and recognition as a leading figure in the national justice reform.
