Prison Life Books

This book shows the true courage of a person who had to endure so much.

Anyone who has lost a loved one should read this book! Ms. Anderson has suffered the loss of her Husband and Son in a plane accident. Rather than wallowing in self pity, or committing a contemplated suicide, Ms Anderson describes the journey that she went through in order to survive and continue living.

The faith that she has sustained her. Her experiences in calling upon this faith may be able to assist countless others to survive similar losses.

If you are suffering from the unexpected loss of a loved one, or if someone you know is suffering, this book will be a significant aid in easing that suffering.

This revealing true story deserves to be read widely, especially by young people tempted to join gangs and turn to crime. Author Jose Cardona gives a first-hand account of the horrific violence of the prison system. As I read this book I was reminded of the futility of punishing more and more people, more and more harshly. The author does not spare any details when describing the hell he witnessed and experienced in prison. I applaud this author for so honestly sharing his Life Story and his faith in God. I highly recommend God's Awesome Redeeming Grace, and hope that this book will find it's way into the hands of those who need to read it, and that they will take it to heart.

--Suza Francina, writer, teacher and activist.

This book is great for parents or anyone that has loved ones (young or adult,male or female) at risk of drinking,doing drugs and/or joining gangs. God's Awesome Redeeming Grace is easy to read and a hard to put down book.

It is also a "TRUE" life story about what real prison life is all about, and the harsh negative consequences of drinking,doing drugs and/or joining gangs. Hopefully after reading this book it will scare you straight and discourage you or any loved one from drinking,doing drugs and/or joining gangs.

P.S. Jose Cardona is also the author of the fantastic book entitled CHRISTIANS BEWARE!! He pulls no punches in exposing the greedy "false" prophets who teach the "false" gospels of prosperity and of salvation by works.False gospels that are only taught for monetary gain and to control people.Please check it out.

My teacher read this book to me in class. It's excellent! Especially if you're interested in Social Studies!! You have to read this!!

Bernard Fitpatrick is a Minnesota man and was drafted in April 1941. He left for the Phillipines in September of 1941. He was captured when Bataan fell and eventually ended up in Japan. This is a good book, and is not unreservedly horrible. He tells of Japanese atrocities but also of human and good Japanese. The story is artlessly but engagingly told, and is a war memoir I am glad I had a chance to read.

At last, a text that depicts life in a concentration camp as experienced by a mosaic of those who lived it. Dr. Anne Grenn Saldinger's 108 page text, Life in a Nazi Concentration Camp, provides the teen-aged reader with a sense of the vastness of the Nazi concentration camp system. She includes a sidebar entitled "shattered teenage dreams" that describes the experience of those the same age as her young readers, thus allowing for maximum identification. Throughout, Dr. Grenn Saldinger connects these experiences to the lessons to be learned for today.

Details from a variety of survivor's videotaped histories or memoirs illustrate her narrative that explains how the Nazis implemented the "Final Solution," the Nazi euphemism for the genocide of the Jews. She begins with Nazi ideology that gave rise to the camp system. There is a short chapter describing the Jews' transition from ghetto to camp, a crucial step in the extermination process often omitted in Holocaust literature. Her young reader will learn important details such as Jews were not the only victims, prisoners had to wear triangles which colors represented the various persecuted groups, and that every inmate had to master unwritten rules of survival. The question of resistance is answered by presenting examples such as the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the bombing of a crematorium at Auschwitz-Birkenau. She emphasizes that staying alive under the dehumanizing conditions also demonstrated active resistance against the Nazi determination to eradicate all Jewish life.

Dr. Grenn Saldinger describes the inhumane conditions clearly and vividly both by her descriptions and by survivor testimony. Her examples do not dwell on the revolting and are sometimes uplifting. For example, she cites the story of a Gypsy (one of the groups targeted for extinction by the Nazis) inmate who saved 16 Jewish children. These children lived to liberation thanks to the Gypsy boy's initiative. The appendix lists the major concentration and death camps followed by an abbreviated glossary of terms. Her suggestions for further reading include an annotated list of a dozen texts suitable for teenagers.

On the next to the last page, Dr. Grenn Saldinger includes the pledge against intolerance created by the World of Difference Institute of the Anti-Defamation League that enables the reader to recognize and declare "that respect for individual dignity, achieving equality, and opposing anti-Semitism, racism, ethnic bigotry, homophobia, or any other form of hatred is a non-negotiable responsibility of all people."

As a Holocaust educator, I have been looking for and finally found a text on this subject that won't exhaust my students. I highly recommend this book even if you are not a Holocaust educator. It includes virtually all of the relevant issues for today's youth studying the Holocaust.

The book does a good job in revealing a complete story of survival of the terrible conditions in the Nazi Concentration Camps. I feel that the target audience was those in the 7 - 9th grades. The book also has a very complete bibliography at the end. While focusing primarily on the plight of the Jews in the Camps, the book also brings out that millions of others were interned in the Camps for various reasons. The book also details the means by which Hitler's SS systematically exterminated millions of innocent victims. The author does subscribe to the very correct line of thought that we must all remember this atrocious crime against humanity so that it isn't repeated. This book would be a great book for anyone who would like to find out more about the Concentration Camps.

"Maximum Security is Steven Linscott's true story. I first read an earlier account, written in 1986 which tells of his arrest in 1980 for the murder of Karen Ann Phillips. The book "Innocence" by Gordon Haresign is the story behind the questionable investigation, misguided officials, and of miscarried justice.

During the ensuing years I have often wondered about the outcome of Steven's destiny. I was deeply troubled by the outcome of the case. Recently I was moved to see if Steven had ever been exonerated. I discovered that he had been set free and that the story of the events leading to his release was chronicled in this book, "Maximum Security."

Steve collaborated with Randall L. Frame to record the events from the night of Karen Ann Philips' murder and Steven's dream, through the trial, conviction, sentencing, and incarceration. The book traces the appeals, bonding, and the difficulties of family adjustments during the period following his three and one half years of imprisonment.

Steve writes of the parallel of his situation with that of Joseph in the Old Testament. He tells of the lessons he learned as he sought God's purpose, and gained new insights into God's love and grace. July 15, 1992, One week before a scheduled retrial, the state dropped all charges, ending the Linscott family's nearly twelve year nightmare.

Steve attributes the outcome to the power of the prayer as he tells of the many faithful Christians banded together over the years praying for him and his family. The book is rich in spiritual insights, discovery, including a perspective on suffering, and some considerations for reform of the criminal justice system.

Though not everyone can identify with incarceration, everyone identifies with personal injustice, struggles of painful events and learning where God is in the midst of pain. If viewed for the wider lessons, I feel this book is of great benefit. Thanks for sharing your painful journey!

Published just prior to the hunger strikes of 1981 which claimed the life of ten IRA prisoners, "On The Blanket" details the so-called "dirty protest" that led up to the horrors of that year. With several first-hand accounts from prisoners and actors in the struggle, Coogan presents an unflinching account of the events in Long Kesh (the Maze) and Armagh prisons. The descriptions of the conditions in both prisons will move even the most cold-hearted reader. Coogan puts forth an important work that will stand as testiment to this troubled period in Irish history.

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT THE DIRTY PROTEST BY THE IRA PRISONERS IN H BLOCK OF THE MAZE PRISON ONE OF THE PRISONERS WAS BOBBY SANDS. WHETEHER YOU AGREE WITH THE IRA OR NOT IT IS A TRAGIC INCIDENT AND SHOWS THE WILL AND DRIVE OF THESE 10 MEN AND ALL THERE SUPPORTERS AND THERE STANDING FOR THE THINGS THEY TRULY BELIEVE IN ESPECIAALY IN SUCH DEPLORABLE CONDITIONS. SOME BOOKS ABOUT THE TROUBLES ARE A LITTLE DIFFICULT TO GET THROUGH BUT THIS WAS A PRETTY GOOD BOOK

The Jews were not the only victims of Hitler's genocidal and homicidal policies. "Pearl of Great Price: The Life of Mother Maria Skobtsova 1891-1945" is her story of why this remarkable woman is canonized by the Orthodox church. An unconventional nun having two failed marriages, given birth to children, she answered the call to faith as World War II swept Europe. Supporting both the refugees of a battered and beaten France and the Jews, she soon found herself in the concentration camps with them. Even forced there, she continued her efforts to help people, eventually earning a tragic death for her efforts. A welcome and highly recommended addition to personal, community, and academic library Holocaust Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists, "Pearl of Great Price" is the true story of a truly remarkable woman, and an enduring testament to the human spirit.

The imminent canonization of Mother Maria Skobtsova is long overdue. Unfortunatly it's the same old story; with her strong will and determination she was seen by some people as a "troublemaker" and a nuisance. But happily that great churchman, Metropolitan Evlogy, Exarch of Western Europe, saw beyond this and recognized her as a woman of exceptional qualities. Living as a nun "in the world" she couldn't hide anything and didn't intend to. She fought her battles, often alone, but she brought love and comfort to many. She lived in Paris at the time Ernest Hemingway lived there too, but this is not the story of the "moveable feast". It's the story of those less fortunate whose goal of the day were to survive illnesses, epidemics, frost, and starvation. Two clean different pictures. By the grace of God, Mother Maria Skobtsova will be officially proclaimed a saint - a status she've had for many people since her horrible death in a Nazi KZ in Easter 1945. Now we wait for a broad presentation of her poetry; a subject only touched from time to time in this book. We are, though, grateful to the unselfish work of the author, Sergei Hackel.

Frank Farnsley weaves a tale of hardness with a rare sensitive approach. In "Prisoner of War", Farnsley takes the reader through POW camplife like a tour guide in New York City! Unlike many war authors who lose their style of writing to grasp the fact of horror, Farnsley maintains his sly storytelling tongue and produces an epic that will go down in his family's history. I found out, after reading this book, that Farnsley died shortly after it's release. He end's his tale with Thomas Wolfe's quote: "You can't go home again" and disagrees saying that: "As long as I have one close,living relative, I shall go home again, because it's one of the most wonderful experiences I've ever had." In light of his passing, he truly has gone home again.

This is a moving, first hand account of humor and horror, the torture and deprivations experienced by bombing crews shot down and captured over Nazi-occupied Europe in the closing days of WWII. It is a subject much overlooked by students of WWII and the daily trials and tribulations are painstakingly detailed by the author over fifty-years later in a short, simple but gripping narrative rarely spoken about by the men who lived through it.

If you are looking for a book on many different life experiences and how to approach them with an understanding of what you are facing...then this book is for you. Life can throw you many different scenarios and this book can help you with what you are facing. Whether you are a Christian or not this book is for YOU!

From the Author
I have attempted in this book to record the collection of thoughts, ideas, revelations and insights I have received over 30 years of my professional life. I have been fascinated by the stories I have heard from my patients over the years. I have felt the pain and anguish of souls struggling with the confusion of feelings and thoughts as they attempt to understand and free themselves from their inner pain. I too have struggled in my personal life with this pain. I am grateful to my patients who have trusted me over the years in revealing the dark side of their self so that I could understand their pain. This is not an easy thing to do. They made themselves vulnerable hoping that in this process they could be delivered or freed from their inner pain and suffering. I have come to realize that this kind of pain is the worse form of pain any human being could suffer. I have tried to be of help to them through the knowledge and experience I have gained over the years. Yet knowledge alone did not seem to be enough most of the time to answer all the questions and solve all the problems. The treatment was able to bring some relief from suffering. This I believe was in the form of empathy and understanding of the pain of the other. I don't make any claim that I have all the answers. I only want to share my insights hoping that this will be a source of strength and encouragement to others that are also on the same journey of discovery and adventure.
I have over the years been exposed to many theories and approaches all of which I have found had something to say. I am grateful to my teachers through these many works of literature. Most of all I have, I believe, received these revelations and insights through a personal and daily walk with my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him I give all glory and praise for the gift of understanding and the wisdom to know what to do, to help others help themselves. I trust the reader will be blessed as I have been over the years in reading and absorbing these revelations.

You have to imagine yourself in a dark prison to understand the faith of Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan. There is no word i can tell you the feeling of reading this book except i know my faith grows. No wonder the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI speaks so highly of the cardinal in his encyclical letter

I could not put this gripping, haunting, and unforgettable book down! Nguyen suffered a tragedy that no human being should have to undergo. The pain, the emotional trauma, the physical attacks that Nguyen endured will burn in your memory for a long time to come.