Not very well written. The constant change of narration was quite jarring; the author would write something in their words and sloppily transition into the accounts of people that had been in prison. Readers get hit with a constant barrage of different prisoners’ written accounts one after another almost, and again, transitions seemed lacking. I read a decent amount of this before I just had to stop reading because it was so sloppily put together. The book’s content was slightly different than my understanding of what it was supposed to be based off of the summary. It seemed like it was supposed to be based more on places like Gitmo as opposed to regular prisons.

I was initially excited to read a range of personal first-hand testimony from prisoners and captives from across the globe and time. However, the setup and writing ended up hamstringing my reading experience. Most notable of my issues were how the boundaries between commentary from Thomas and prisoner testimony were often extremely unclear to an unfortunately consistent degree, and numerous times I found myself surprised to realized that I had slipped from one into the other, and vice-versa.

I do applaud the author for attempting to take on life in captivity with such a diverse range of voices, and Thomas does show that this is some universality to captive life across time and geography. However, I strongly feel that the execution could have gone better.

Subtitled, “Incarceration from Siberia to Guantanamo Bay,” this is a collection of personal recollections, diary entries and extracts from books, about the experience of being held prisoner. Those included are rich, poor, male, female, old, young, from all over the world and many different backgrounds, countries and religions. Some of those included were guilty of major crimes, some major ones and some guilty of no offence that most readers would recognise.

The chapters cover various different aspects of being a prisoner: Settling Down, A Community?, Dealing with Staff, Prisoners in Authority, The wonderful world of communication, The studied organisation of cruelty, ‘Cruel and Unusual Punishment,’ Sex and the Captive, The Political Captive and On Freedom. Many of the extracts come from books about people you may have read before – Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Primo Levi and Nelson Mandela for example. There are political prisoners and those who committed major crimes, such as Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.

In this book we travel from the American Civil War, through Tsarist Russia, to the Burma Railway and through the gates of Auschwitz, as well as many other notorious events and places. However, it is not all about those who are famous, or infamous. It deals with normal people, in abnormal situations; highlighting the monotony, and brutality, encountered by those who find themselves imprisoned, for whatever reason – both in history and recently. This is a really interesting collection and will make you appreciate your life – and freedom – which we so often take for granted. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

This book didn't have a story per say. It was all about people who have spend time in jail and their stories about different situations that have come up. This book is split up into different subjects and each subject has a bunch of different person stories that inmates have dealt with in regards to the subject in question. This book is made up of diary entries, personal stories and all from different inmates some poor, some rich, male, female, young, old and all with different religions and backgrounds. I liked this because instead of getting one long story you get smaller chunks on different topics. I learned a lot from this book about prisons back in the day and how they differ now and protocols that I didn't even know where a thing. Very interesting story a lot different than the kind of book that I'm used to but I have to say that I did enjoy this one.

This was a fascinating book about people of all backgrounds that have been incarcerated. It was interesting to read how each person handles being in prison. As a psychology major, I could not put this down, but I think anyone would enjoy this very personal narrative of these people.

With my son being a police officer I thought this sounded like an interesting book to read.
This is a nonfiction account of personal stories of people that have spent time in jail just a paragraph or two on each person and how they dealt with the brought up topic. Rich or poor,male or female,young or old, innocent or not stories are here of many people and the utter loneliness,feelings of despair and thoughts of suicide seem to be the way some of the inmates deal with long term incarceration. These aren't stories of just USA prisoners but around the world. Some other countries have a much worse prison system than we do in the USA including malnourished prisoners and being afraid to fall asleep for being beaten . The violence is out of control. Upon release these prisoners couldn't adjust to life on the outside and in many cases they got themselves locked up again within 6 months. Very harsh life for these people and interesting reading. Life on the inside is nothing like what you see on tv shows.
Pub Date 19 Jul 2018
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Jessica Kingsley Publishers through NetGalley. All opinions expressed are my own

A fascinating book, exploring the problems faced both inside and outside of prison. These personal recollections are simply presented, representing people from all walks of life, how they handle their incarceration, and what it is to be behind bars.

an amazing book about people in captivity and their experiences of freedom and captivity. A must read!

This is a real fascinating look at the prison system and how it affects inmates in all parts of the world. It looks at how different parts of their lives are affected by being incarcerated and also what happens when they leave prison and its not as happy as it might seem regaining their freedom.