By: Jill Grunenwald, librarian and OverDrive Collection Development Analyst

Before coming to OverDrive, one of my previous gigs was as the sole librarian at an all male prison here in the Cleveland area.

True story.

I’d always sort of had a weird passing interest in prison and stories set behind bars, but that personal experience pretty much sealed it for me as A Thing I Am Interested In. Naturally, then, this means that I’m also a pretty big fan of Orange is the New Black, both the book and the Netflix series which returns on June 17th. (I even have a figurine of the kitchen goddess Red sitting on my desk here in the OverDrive offices. Fun Fact: Kate Mulgrew, the actress who plays Red, has some personal connections to Cleveland.)

If you watch the show yourself, you know that the ladies at Litchfield are huge readers – I mean, I speak from experience when I say that having a healthy love for books is one way for an inmate to stay out of trouble – and we have a big list of titles that have been mentioned or read on the show. It includes a good mix of contemporary fiction along with some of the classics thrown in.

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

Personally, I also enjoy reading books set in prison, both fiction and non-fiction, and for that we have an Orange Is the New Black Readalike List. Along with titles set behind bars, this list also includes memoirs from some of the show’s stars and books set in other types of institutions.

With the return of the show, there is going to be a renewed interest among your patron population so either of these lists would make excellent curated collections on your OverDrive site!