Saint Badass: Personal Transcendence in Tucker Max Hell

Written by Doug Carnine, Roy Tester, Cody Griffin and 2 more

Narrated by Malcom Ryker

"My life was the result of my crazy childhood."

With these words began an extraordinary correspondence between Roy Tester, a double-murderer serving a life sentence in the notorious Arkansas prison, Tucker Maximum Security Prison, and Doug Carnine, a meditation teacher and lay Buddhist minister on the other side of the country.

In the letters that followed - more than 700 over seven years - these two men, along with three other prisoners at Tucker Max, developed a profound spiritual partnership that changed all of their lives.

Saint Badass: Personal Transcendence in Tucker Max Hell tells the inspiring story of these unlikely friends in their own words and follows their journey as they rediscover their humanity in one of the most inhuman places on Earth.

An Author's Republic audio production.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Author's Republic
• Release date: Jan 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9780998050966

Doug Carnine

Douglas Carnine, a professor emeritus from the University of Oregon, began his pursuit of scientific research, instructional design, Buddhism and martial arts when he was 21. His academic career focused on failure-to-thrive children and lead to him receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council for Exceptional Children. After retiring, he became curious about the importance of kindness from working with men convicted of murder and serving as a hospice volunteer. After reviewing the research on kindness, he decided to devote his writing and his advocacy to making the importance of mindful kindness more prominent. The resulting project is his website Feedkindness.com along with the books ‘How Love Wins’ and ‘Saint Badass.’

Reviews for Saint Badass

[Candice Perez · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Who knows what happened to Cody Griffin says he expired was it natural causes

[sealford_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I started reading this quite a while back, and somehow misplaced it. I rediscovered it tonight and could not put it down. I've always been interested in the background of prisoners: what happened to them to make them go to prison, how were they before, etc. This book took those questions into account and so much more. The author gets to know several inmates over the course of many years, and the stories that he shares are both amazing and bittersweet. On the one hand, the inmates have made peace with their situation. On the other hand, you can't help but wonder how lonely and frustrating life inside those walls can be. This was an excellent read and I enjoyed reading the author's correspondence over the years.

[tellen81 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book was an okay read. It was neat to see how each of the men progress through their journey throughout the book. It makes you think about how one small kind act can make a big difference at times.