Several months ago, someone tweeted at me asking which books I’d read in prison; whether I’d kept a list or anything like that. I had, but it was boxed up along with the rest of the property I took with me when I walked out. I had occasion to go through the box last weekend so here’s the list. Many of the books I’d read before, and many of the books I read more than one time while I was incarcerated.

• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi — Half of a Yellow Sun
• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi — The Thing Around Your Neck
• Baldwin, James — The Fire Next Time
• Baldwin, James — Giovanni’s Room
• Baldwin, James — Go Tell It on the Mountain
• Baldwin, James — If Beale Street Could Talk
• Beatty, Paul — The White Boy Shuffle
• Bulgakov, Mikhail — Heart of a Dog
• Bulgakov, Mikhail — The Master and Margarita
• Bulgakov, Mikhail — The White Guard
• Byrne, David — How Music Works
• Capote, Truman — In Cold Blood
• Carlin, Peter Ames — Bruce
• Cash, Johnny — Cash: The Autobiography of Johnny Cash
• Chabon, Michael — The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
• Chabon, Michael — Telegraph Avenue
• Chabon, Michael — Wonder Boys
• Chang, Jeff — Cant’s Stop, Won’t Stop
• Cisneros, Sandra — The House On Mango Street
• Cleaver, Eldridge — Soul On Ice
• Coates, Ta-Nehisi — The Beautiful Struggle
• Coates, Ta-Nehisi — Between the World and Me
• Cohen, Leonard — Beautiful Losers
• Cohen, Leonard — Book of Longing
• Cole, Teju — Open City
• Collins, Suzanne — The Hunger Games Series (3)
• Davis, Angela — An Autobiography
• Davis, Angela — Blues Legacies and Black Feminism
• Davis, Angela — Women, Race and Class
• Davis, Miles — Miles
• DeLillo, Don — Great Jones Street
• DeLillo, Don — Underworld
• DeLillo, Don — White Noise
• Didion, Joan — A Book of Common Prayer
• Didion, Joan — Democracy
• Didion, Joan — Blue Nights
• Didion, Joan — Play It as It Lays
• Didion, Joan — Slouching Towards Bethlehem
• Duncan, David James — The Brothers K
• Dunn, Katherine — Geek Love
• Dylan, Bob — Chronicles
• Dylan, Bob — Tarantuala
• Egan, Jennifer — A Visit From the Goon Squad
• Eggers, Dave — Zeitoun
• Eliot, TS — The Waste Land and Other Poems
• Eugenides, Jeffrey — The Marriage Plot
• Eugenides, Jeffrey — Middlesex
• Franzen, Jonathan — The Corrections
• Franzen, Jonathan — Freedom
• Gay, Roxane — Bad Feminist
• Heller, Joseph — Catch-22
• Hiaasen, Carl — Double Whammy
• Hiaasen, Carl — Native Tongue
• Hiaasen, Carl — Skinny Dip
• Hiaasen, Carl — Strip Tease
• Hurston, Zora Neale — Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Jamison, Kay Redfield — An Unquiet Mind
• Jamison, Kay Redfield — Touched With Fire
• Johnson, Denis — Jesus’ Son
• Johnson, Denis — Nobody Move
• Johnson, Denis — Tree of Smoke
• July, Miranda — No One Belongs Here More Than You
• Larsson, Stieg — The Girl… Series (3)
• Lee, Harper — To Kill a Mockinbird
• Lipsyte, Sam — Home Land
• Marquez, Gabriel Garcia — Love in the Time of Cholera
• Marquez, Gabriel Garcia — One Hundred Years of Solitude
• Martin, George RR — A Song of Ice and Fire Series (5)
• Martin, Steve — Born Standing Up
• Martin, Steve — Cruel Shoes
• Morrison, Toni — The Bluest Eye
• Morrison, Toni — Jazz
• Morrison, Toni — Song of Solomon
• Murakami, Haruki — The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
• Newton, Huey P — Revolutionary Suicide
• O’Brien, Tim — The Things They Carried
• O’Connor, Flannery — Wise Blood
• Ondaatje, Michael — The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
• Ondaatje, Michael — Coming Through Slaughter
• Plath, Sylvia — The Bell Jar
• Price, Richard — Clockers
• Pynchon, Thomas — Inherent Vice
• Roth, Philip — American Pastoral
• Roth, Philip — I Married a Communist
• Sanchez, Sonia — Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums
• Satrapi, Marjane — The Complete Persepolis
• Saunders, George — Civilwarland In Bad Decline
• Seale, Bobby — Seize the Time
• Shakespeare, William — Hamlet
• Shakespeare, William — Othello
• Shteyngart, Gary — Little Failure
• Shteyngart, Gary — Super Sad True Love Story
• Smith, Patti — Just Kids
• Smith, Zadie — The Autograph Man
• Smith, Zadie — NW
• Smith, Zadie — On Beauty
• Smith, Zadie — White Teeth
• Tartt, Donna — The Goldfinch
• Thompson, Ahmir — Mo Meta Blues
• Thompson, Hunter S — Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas
• Thompson, Hunter S — Hell’s Angels
• Toole, John Kennedy — A Confederacy of Dunces
• Twain, Mark — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Twain, Mark — The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• Vonnegut, Kurt — Breakfast of Champions
• Vonnegut, Kurt — Cat’s Cradle
• Vonnegut, Kurt — Jailbird
• Vonnegut, Kurt — Player Piano
• Vonnegut, Kurt — The Sirens of Titan
• Walker, Alice — The Color Purple
• Walker, Alice — Meridian
• Wallace, David Foster — A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
• Wallace, David Foster — Consider the Lobster
• Ward, Jesmyn — Men We Reaped
• Whitehead, Colson — Sag Harbor
• Wilmer, Val — As Serious As Your Life
• Wilson, August — Fences
• Wolfe, Tom — The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
• Wolfe, Tom — The Pump House Gang
• Yates, Richard — Revolutionary Road
• Zevon, Crystal — I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon