Running the Books

By Avi Steinberg

Avi Steinberg is stumped. After defecting from yeshiva to attend Harvard, he has nothing but a senior thesis on Bugs Bunny to show for himself. While his friends and classmates advance in the world, Steinberg remains stuck at a crossroads, his “romantic” existence as a freelance obituary writer no longer cutting it.
 
Seeking direction (and dental insurance) Steinberg takes a job running the library counter at a Boston prison. He is quickly drawn into the community of outcasts that forms among his bookshelves—an assortment of quirky regulars, including con men, pimps, minor prophets, even ghosts—all searching for the perfect book and a connection to the outside world. Steinberg recounts their daily dramas with heartbreak and humor in this one-of-a-kind memoir—a piercing exploration of prison culture and an entertaining tale of one young man’s earnest attempt to find his place in the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 19, 2010
• ISBN: 9780385533737

Reviews for Running the Books

[cindywho-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Local boy, Avi, takes on the library at the South Bay for a couple of years and passes on stories of his encounters with some of the inmates and officers - tough and sad and interesting.

[jeangabrielle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have secretly wanted to be a prison librarian for many years, so I was eager to read this memoir from someone who had done it. I found his honesty about his role in the prison, his relationship with the inmates and officers, and his conflicts with his own past thoughtful and well-written without being conclusive or judgmental. The author represents his own complicated feelings without being afraid to admit his many mistakes in interactions with the incarcerated and the civil servants who work with them. This is a book about respect for those who seek answers and I hope to be a better librarian for having read it, regardless of the population I serve.

[rosies_38 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

a bit self-serving; a bit exploitative

[pagei_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book. I'm a librarian, but I couldn't work where Avi did. If you want to know what it's like to work in a prison, then I think you'll enjoy this book.

[mrs_mcgreevy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A most excellent opening paragraph leads the way into a a book that's part memoir, part expose, and part biography of the prisoners Steinberg meets. It's funny and fascinating, but it's also thoughtful and poignant. If you're looking for answers one way or the other about prisoners and the prison system, this isn't your book. But if you're looking for a chance to meet some interesting people and see the impact of prison on them, them on prison, and all of it on a civilian employee, then definitely give this one a try.

[librarycin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Avi Steinberg, once very involved in Jewish religious life, was writing obituaries when he saw the ad for a prison librarian. He got the job. This tells of his time in that job. We learn of some of the inmates who were regulars in the library, and we also learn of some of Steinberg's past. I waffled between 3.5 stars (good) and 4 stars (really good), but went with the higher rating. I was more interested in the inmates he came across and his work at the prison than I was in his personal life - most of what he told of that was of his Jewish upbringing. What a difficult job that would be! There are so many issues to working in a prison I wouldn't have thought of. Definitely interesting.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

After finishing Harvard and abandoning his Orthodox Jewish upbringing, Avi Steinberg found himself writing obituaries and avoiding any discussion of his goals in life. Feeling a bit lost and inadequate (his friends and classmates were attorneys, doctors, rabbis, etc), he took a job as a librarian in a Boston prison. He didn’t have a degree in library science, but then most of his “library patrons” were barely literate. And the job included health benefits.

I expected something more – perhaps some humorous anecdotes, or insight into Steinberg’s motivations, or those of the inmates or guards. But this was torturously slow to start, and I was bored for most of it. I persevered only because I needed it to fulfill a challenge. It didn’t really get interesting until about page 200. Some of the stories he related after that point were very touching and poignant, but in the end I’m feeling about as lost as Steinberg was at the beginning of the book. Now, CC Too Sweet’s “Memoir of a Pimp”? THAT I’d like to read …

Note: I used to work for the Division of Corrections. I’ve worked both in and outside the correctional facilities. When I was a probation/parole officer I handled a caseload of adult male felons (everything from worthless checks to murder). I don’t think I ever came across anyone so ill prepared and ill suited to working in the system as Steinberg.

[dysmonia · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Running the Books offers uneven writing and poor editing. I was surprised to see the publisher is a Doubleday imprint. Countless times as I was reading it, my roommate interrupted me to ask what I was laughing at. A few examples follow.



In reference to an inmate employee partaking in a vicious assault: "How, I wondered, was a person so concerned about hurting paperback books able to commit such violence to another human being? I personally didn't know too many vegetarians who were capable of that." hE OBVIOUSLY MY CAT TURNED ON THE CAPS LOCK, SORRY He obviously hasn't met me, or looked me up on any pertinent Clerk of Court websites. I can answer his question, though: because we don't attack books or eat people.

Regarding an inmate who wants to become a master chef when he gets out: "I considered bringing in some basic herbs and spices for Chudney. Kick things off with some fresh basil, rosemary, thyme. But I quickly nixed the idea. I could already see Officer Chuzzlewit's report: Sir, today at 1450, I did see the facility's librarian hand inmate Franklin 0506891 an unmarked plastic baggie full of a green, leafy substance. They did proceed to exchange a handshake usually used by gangs. He'd buy off three inmates to testify that I'd sold them Oxycontin in the library, that I'd delivered it in a hollowed-out James Patterson novel. I'd be in handcuffs before supper." Because Oxy, in its street form, is a leafy green substance. (This idea of "three inmates" backing up an accusation of him selling, specifically, Oxycontin, is part of a particular paranoia Steinberg has, and surfaces multiple times in the book as part of his fears involving a feud with a CO.)

Describing the day he "cracks": "Because of my bad back, I hadn't slept the night before and was already in a state. It was 7:40 a.m. Twenty minutes until the day's first inmates were due in the library. Not enough time to get my cereal: looked like I'd be having revenge for breakfast." This last sentence seems to have been written without irony.


Steinberg isn't a bad writer, he's not a bad prison librarian, and he's definitely not a bad guy. There are some nice passages in the book (apparently I didn't bother to mark any of those with a shredded Winnie-the-Pooh sticky note -- only shit that made me laugh out loud), and he definitely conveys his inner conflicts and his true character, which can be difficult to do. The book was just wildly uneven, the editing so bad the reader has to edit in her head as she goes along in order to make sense of the pages, and all this makes it an unpleasant experience for the consumer.

[pennyanne_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating insight into the world of a prison library.

[mawls · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I thought the focus was a bit sporadic, jumping back and forth between the author's personal life and his work life. But the stories told about working in the prison were told with a respectable truth. I wouldn't run out to read it, but if you have the time or interest, it's one worth checking out.

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

With a degree in English from Harvard and few career prospects, the author takes a job as a prison librarian and creative writing instructor at a Boston-area prison. Steinberg's stories range from funny to tragic, and the memoir is most interesting when he sticks to his prison experiences.

[juva_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The story of a lapsed orthodox Jew taking over the library in a Boston prison. A close look at prison life and the lives of those in prison. Poignant, funny, bizarre and ultimately very easy to relate to. Worth a read.

[exlibrisbitsy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In these trying times college graduates have it particularly hard, many find themselves having to move back in with parents, taking jobs at lower pay grades or outside of their fields, and more often than not they are left feeling like they are not where they should be. I urge those people to pick up this book, because it could be a lot worse. In Running the Books Avi Steinberg shares his memories of graduating from college (with a senior thesis essay on Bugs Bunny) to eventually become a prison librarian for two years. His greenness and nonchalant attitude toward life before entering the prison to work with inmates among the stacks had me wincing but ultimately his experiences there, and the fascinating people he met, gave me a lot of food for thought. If you are looking for an in-depth analysis on American prison culture this is not that, but what it is turns out to be more than what you’d expect considering Avi’s less than auspicious start: fooling a drug test to get hired at a prison.The book begins with all the reasons Steinberg ended up working at a prison in the first place and the introduction to what his job working there entailed. It also opens with what has to be one of my top ten favorite book openings of all time: “Pimps make the best librarians.” A lot of the opening continues in this vein with a lot of sharp wit about both prisons and libraries and the interesting place where they intersect. The memories of his time there are shared in a series of anecdotes that veer between being overly self-deprecating and negative towards both himself and the prisoners that he worked with, and moments of true light and hope that maybe libraries could bring some good into the lives of these convicts. Ultimately he manages to bring it together and strike a realistic tone that lies somewhere in the grey area between those two extremes.The book really started becoming interesting when it became obvious the author had done his homework. He visited other prisons in the area, including abandoned ones, and spent some real time digging into the place of prisons in society. He compares what they are meant to do with what they actually do in an unflinching and bold way that almost makes you forget his lighthearted and almost mocking beginning.I think the second half of the book is where he really shined though. He talks about specific stories of three inmates and the impact both the library and the prison system had on their lives. An ex-stripper now inmate who gave up her son for adoption asks Avi to help her contact him when he is admitted to prison as an adult. A pimp wants Avi’s help writing a memoir that glosses over his very real and very terrible crimes. An ex-gangster wants help putting together the paper work necessary to pitch his own cooking show, Thug Sizzle. Where those stories, and the prison system, lead him to is a reality based conclusion worth reading about.In the end Avi Steinberg is a civilian looking from the outside in on a broken prison system through privileged eyes, and its best not to forget that reality. It is also worth noting that he was given next to no training on working with convicts before being thrown in to the deep end and his struggles reflect that. You may wince your way through reading about the trials Steinberg went through, both self-inflicted (drug test) and not (robbed by one of his former patrons out on parole) but at least you will leave the book with this one take away. You, and Avi, may not have it so great right now, but it could be worse.I received this book for free to review.

[saramllr · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a memoir about a guy who answers an ad on Craigslist and finds himself working at a Boston prison as a librarian. I enjoyed reading about some of the special obstacles that prison librarians face (magazines and duct tape make a weapon?!?) and he does a good job describing some of the more colorful characters he met along the way.

[mkboylan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

About 1/3 of the way through Running the Books and I'm quitting. i have to say the cover is AWESOME! It's a pic of a face designed with a due date stamp. Very clever I thought. Thought I'd love the book but only liked it somewhat and too much other great stuff waiting. I've done some group counseling work with women in jail and in juvenile hall which I liked so thought I'd like it more, thought the premise was great, had some great moments, just not enough.

[rosalita_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Avi Steinberg is leading a pretty aimless life, writing obituaries for a newspaper, when he takes an abrupt detour and becomes a prison librarian. Throughout the first half of the book, Steinberg portrays himself as a real naïf about prison life. He is fascinated by the ways that inmates find of skirting the restrictions on their interpersonal communications, and he allows some of them, master manipulators who can sense his inexperience the way a dog senses fear, to con him into giving them more freedoms and privileges in the prison library than are permitted by the strict rules. Steinberg nicely portrays his growing savvy as the book progresses, and an encounter with a former inmate out in the "real world" serves as a stark reminder that even the most charming, intelligent pimp is still a pimp. Overall, however, the book was entertaining without being compelling. A couple of long interruptions in my reading did not leave me clamoring to get back to it, although I did eventually.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Avi Steinberg's memoir "Running the Books" relates his experiences as a prison librarian and creative writing teacher. It provides an insight into prison life, and how inmates use the library for learning, communicating with each other, diversion and other reasons. I found the writing a bit disjointed. I was sometimes confused about time sequencing and lost track of who some of the characters were. At other times, Mr. Steinberg's writing resonated so well when he described insights he gleaned -- sometimes after contemplation and sometines in the blink of an eye.One unique aspect of this book is the perspective of a prison worker -- we usually read from the perspective of inmates, guards, lawyers and sometimes social workers. Mr. Steinberg, as a young librarian brings a new voice to the issues surrounding crime and punishment.

[queensowntalia · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Steinberg's 'Running the Books' offers a vivid, entertaining and insightful portrayal of his time as a prison librarian at a Boston facility. The tales of the colorful characters he meets there are riveting; he does a great job bringing them to life in the reader's mind. Not that you'd necessarily want to meet them - many of them engaged in despicable acts prior to incarceration, and the dichotomy between who they were on the outside and who they are as prisoners is one of the topics the book explores. Woven through the tales of inmate shenanigans are fascinating commentaries on prison culture and the relationships that develop within those concrete walls.Steinberg had a good story to tell, and he delivers it well. 'Running' gives readers a fascinating peek into a rather grim world that (hopefully!) most of us will never experience.

[knitwit2_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This may be the best book I've read all year. Mr. Steinberg has a way with words that indicates he is clearly well educated, however he is entirely readable. He brings the prisoners and their stories to life for the reader through self examination forces us to do the same. Every page had a quote worth jotting down to ponder later. A book that stays with you and you want it to!

[lahochstetler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As an unemployed Harvard graduate, Steinberg found himself taking a job as a librarian in a maximum-security prison. His memoir details his adjustment to prison life and the relationships he forms with the inmates. Steinberg quickly discovers that the library is a lifeline for inmates, and that intricate hierarchies dominate prison life. He finds himself involved in elaborate turn wars with some of the guards, and emotionally invested with the inmates. Steinberg's tale is certainly humorous; that was clear from the opening line: "Pimps make the best librarians." The absurdities of Steinberg's clientele are on full display, but Steinberg is certainly sympathetic to his patrons. He goes to bat for the inmates on more than one occasion. Steinberg attempts to reunite a mother with her long-lost son, and helps another inmate plan for a future career as a chef. For all the humor and humanity, this book does not shy away from the violent and dehumanizing elements of prison. Aside from the miseries and loneliness of prison, Steinberg discovers that the outside world has its own problems, as he reads about the deaths of released inmates in the newspaper. He is particularly saddened by the deaths of two inmates to whom he developed connections in the library and his writing classes. Ultimately the humor and the sadness are wrapped together; they are inseparable. This is a well-done memoir written by an observant and sensitive man. I highly recommend it.

[chrystal_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Being a reference librarian in a public library, I loved this book. I loved Avi's personal story of how he came to be a prison librarian and all the subsequent stories and insights. Alot to learn and enjoy in this book.

[dk_phoenix_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a strange, strange book... it follows the career of a young, Jewish academic whose life seems to be going nowhere (all he has to show for himself is a final thesis on Bugs Bunny) who stumbles into a job as a prison librarian. The premise sounds intriguing, but the problem I found with the book is that there doesn't seem to be a central theme -- there's no core purpose to come back to. Even memoir has a plot of some kind, a reason that the author wanted to write the memoir in the first place, but this book seemed to jump around from anecdote to anecdote. For the longest time, I really wasn't sure what the point of telling the story was... so I'd read a few pages before bed, then go to sleep, with no real drive to pick it up again.About two-thirds of the way through the book, themes begin to emerge. Certain prison names and faces resurface and we learn what happened to them, and how it changed Avi in the process. His writing class in the prison library and his relationship with the police officers at the prison become a central issue, and we get more insight into how working at the prison library affected Avi personally.It took awhile to get there... but I wonder if this was reflective of Avi's time working in the prison library, too: All anecdotes and strange happenings until he began to feel comfortable and at home in the job, and then things started making sense.This might not sound like an endorsement for the book, but it is. It's fascinating to see how the prison library system works, not to mention how prisons function from the inside, and the difference between men and women behind bars. How these groups communicate with each other is even more interesting.If you're willing to enjoy random stories for a little while before things begin to tie together and make sense as a whole, go ahead and read it. It's a unique piece of literature, worth the time it takes to really get into it.

[cushlareads · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Steinberg is in his mid-20s and has just graduated from Harvard with a BA in I'm guessing English lit - anyway, humanities of some kind. His background is interesting and the story is as much about him as about his job and the Boston prison system he ends up working in. He grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family and his act of teenage rebellion was to become extremely religious - he spent his summers studying the Torah and went to a very intense camp in the West Bank. The book starts when he's at a wedding and is trying to avoid his former rabbis, who want to know what he's going to do with his life - because at some stage he leaves the yeshiva and goes to Harvard and is a very un-observant Jew. He applies for a job as the librarian and creative writing teacher in Boston's South Bay prison. He works there for 2 years, and the picture he paints is pretty gruesome.There are some really funny bits in the book but overall it's pretty sad and scary in places. He really describes the prisoners who are his library regulars well, like CC Too Sweet, the former pimp who's trying to write his memoirs, and Chudney, who wants to become a TV chef. There's a whole world of street culture and jail culture that I knew nothing about - 'kites'(notes left in library books), 'sky writing' where the male and female prisoners use torches to send messages from window to window, and 'feeders'- prison workers who bring food in for the prisoners, for a range of motives. And the ferocity with which the rules are enforced, the tension between unionised and non-unionised workers, and the hierarchy within the staff was awful to read about. Highly recommended to nearly everyone.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The last thing Avi expected to become was a prison librarian. This former Orthodox Jew without an MLS applied for the job because, well why not? It was full time and came with benefits, which was more than he could say for writing obits. But the job came with much more than the description in the ad could entail.As a librarian in a public library, I usually skip over books that are about working at a library. It feels too much like bringing work home. This memoir intrigued me, however, reminding me of a class I look en route to my MLS on serving underserved populations. Our class even visited a prison library as a field trip. And, I figured, his job was different enough from mine not to feel like bringing work home. Well, soon after starting this book I realized how much of an understatement that was. At first I was put off by his casual use of swear words and his attitude towards the religious life he left behind. After he got the job, however, I became fascinated with some of the details of his interactions with inmates, his struggles with "the right thing to do" in various situations, and what his job entailed. It's about as different as a job in the same field can possibly be; we both work with books and try to have materials on the shelves that interest our patrons, but that's about as far as the similarities go. The high stress of his job and the constant battle between serving the inmates and keeping the guards happy gets to him after awhile. The descriptions of prison life and the lifestyle and choice of the men and women who were in that prison are not pretty, and drained me just reading the book. By the time I got to the end, the book started to feel disjointed and hard to follow. I wasn't sure if I ran out of steam or the author did. Still, this is a profession that doesn't get a lot of notice, and I enjoyed this look into an aspect of librarianship that is often fraught with difficulty.

[toobusyreading · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Although I'm not the first to quote it, I love the first few lines of this memoir:Pimps make the best librarians. Psycho killers, the worst. Ditto con men. Gangsters, gunrunners, bank robbers – adept at crowd control, at collaborating with a small staff, at planning with deliberation and executing with contained fury, all possess the librarian's basic skill set.With this start, I expected the book to have some funny moments. I didn't expect its poignancy.Tired of his job as an obituary writer, a nerdy Jewish guy responds to a Craigslist posting for a prison librarian. Hoping the drugs are out of his system so that he can pass mandatory screening, he applies for and receives the job, probably due to the bar being set incredibly low. As an added plus, or perhaps not, he is given the task of teaching creative writing to people who just want the change of scenery.Mr. Steinberg finds the humanity in prison, understands how his abrasive grandmother was not unlike the inmates, imprisoned by her own life. An inmate points out how Avi's neglected Jewish faith should be taken more seriously, how Hasidim is “the epitome of gangsta.” And it makes sense. Lots of posturing, lots of facades, but Avi saw beyond that. Some of the prisoners let him see the insides of their minds. I found it interesting that although the author was a civil employee, he seemed to have much more empathy for the inmates than for the guards. While there are some kindnesses, the officers are often portrayed negatively, in their own petty gangsta world. Still, there are officers like the one who was proud of helping keep society safe, yet went to church every week to ask forgiveness for locking humans in a cage.A story that especially touched me was that of Jessica, a prisoner who watched her own son playing basketball in the recreation yard below. However, whenever the author got too sentimental or too Pollyanna, he would get (mostly figuratively) smacked down. He recalls joking with a prisoner about being a pimp, and then encountering the reality of that word when he meets him outside of prison. Learning about the horrible crimes of someone he was mentoring.Even though this is an entertaining read, every once in awhile it would touch me deeply enough that I would just close the book and say “wow,” my generation's equivalent of OMG.It wasn't remarkable...for an officer to run into harm's way to break up a fight.... That after all was his job, his training. But for him to find a way to be compassionate in an environment like prison, that was courage.The quotes are taken from a bound galley and may be different in the finished version. Thank you to the publisher for giving me this galley.

[karieh_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I chose this book because I was intrigued by the story of a prison librarian…and because one of my favorite writers was quoted on the back with very positive things to say about “Running the Books.” And it was interesting…but would have been a more compelling read if – and I’ve tried to think of any other way to say this – it was shorter.Since that sounds more than slightly lazy - I suppose what I really mean is that there wasn’t a story arc that held my interest through the whole book. Though I realize this is a memoir – there just isn’t a climax of any sort. The reader is introduced to Avi, we learn how he ends of applying for and becoming a librarian in a Boston prison…and then we just stay there in prison with him.We learn more about the prisoners than we do Avi. Which is interesting, of course, but because he is our window into this world that few of us know much about, we want to know more about how he feels in that unreal atmosphere – and the effects that it has on his life outside of work. For that matter – I wanted to learn more about his life outside of work, period.“The main book man. I like that. I can’t help it. For an asthmatic Jewish kid, it’s got a nice ring to it. Hired to run Boston’s prison library – and serve as the resident creative writing teacher – I am living my (quixotic) dream: a book-slinger with a badge and a streetwise attitude, part bookworm, part badass. This identity has helped me tremendously at cocktail parties.”Because he’s one of the few people we read about that spends time in the prison world by choice, I wanted to know more about what kept him there, more about how he felt about leaving and what he did after his prison experience. He’s one of the few that a reader might hold out hope that would leave prison and not return – and so the ending just sort of falls off – leaving many unanswered questions. The cultural references he brings out about prisons and their role in society were well done, “Archeologists are occasionally unsure whether an unidentified solidly built ancient structure is a prison or whether it is a treasury building. The polar ends of a society’s assets – its wealth and its criminals – are guarded with equal vehemence. Both are of supreme concern and utmost value.”For a reader, a librarian is a familiar occupation. The story of that occupation existing in such unfamiliar surroundings should be a compelling one. But because time in prison is measured in such a different way - without more detail on Avi and his life providing an overarching timeline – the reader is left feeling that every prison story has the same result, with just a different inmate.