Mark Twain is working on a project to curate 500 books in prisons. He says the idea comes from his love of reading and how it can lift up mundane aspects of daily life. The library would be curated into different layers, such as bookcases or storage systems that could hold more than one collection at once.
Author, lawyer, and poet Dwayne Betts talks about his time in prison and the power of reading with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Betts is the founder of the Million Book Project, which aims to put a small library of great books in 1,000 U.S. prisons. Betts discusses his plans for the project and how reading helped him transform himself.