JOIN OUR BOOK CLUB
We meet approximately every other month, in person and online. Members can also connect on our Discord server, here.
Books and meeting dates will be announced on our social media channels, on our website, and in our monthly newsletter.
With the support of our partner Massive Bookshop, we’re also thrilled to be able to offer a new way to support us through participating in our book club: become a monthly donor at the $25+ level and get each month’s title shipped directly to you.
You can sign up for the monthly membership here or make a one-time purchase here.
Please feel free to email decarwmassfundraising@gmail.com if you have any questions or would like more information.
The Decarcerate Western Mass Book Club creates space to engage with abolitionist thought, strengthen community and connection, and collectively build our political education, developing a shared knowledge base for advancing abolitionist struggle together.
Sign up for our monthly newsletter for book club updates, and email decarwmassvolunteering@gmail.com if you’d like to volunteer with us in support of the book club!
Book Club Selections
Here’s what we’ve been — and will be! — reading.
December 2024: Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People Are Dismantling Mass Incarceration (2023) by Jocelyn Simonson
October 2024: Tip of the Spear Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt (2023) by Orisanmi Burton
March 2024: The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison by Hugh Ryan
RECAP + DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
January 2024: Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis
RECAP + DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
July 2024: Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, Second Edition
Eric A. Stanley (Editor); Nat Smith (Editor); CeCeMcDonald (Foreword)
May 2024: Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World by Dorothy Roberts
May 2025: Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation (2012)
Author/Contributor(s): Richie, Beth E
Publisher: New York University Press
March 2026: “Who Would Believe a Prisoner? Indiana Women’s Carceral Institutions, 1848–1920” (2023)
Author/Contributor(s): The Indiana Women's Prison History Project
ed. Michelle Jones & Elizabeth Angeline Nelson
Publisher: New Press
January 2026: Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition (2024)
by Silky Shah
Foreword by Amna A. Akbar
November 2026: Inventing the Savage: The Social Construction of Native American Criminality (1998)
Author/Contributor(s): Ross, Luana
Publisher: University of Texas Press
September 2026: The Tale of a Wall: Reflections on the Meaning of Hope and Freedom (2024)
By Nasser Abu Srour
Translated by Luke Leafgren
Publisher: Other Press
July 2026: Blood in My Eye (1971)
Author/Contributor(s): Jackson, George L
Publisher: Black Classic Press