The Life Inside

Reviews / Votes

Andy West's tense and intimate book is an education . . . The Life Inside deserves the widest possible readership. -- Geoff Dyer By turns enriching, sobering and at times, heartrending. A tale centering on our inner critic or executioner and how to stifle its constant sniping. A wonder. * Sir Lenny Henry * An authentic, fascinating and deeply moving story about the different ways people search for freedom. -- Terry Waite Written with sensitivity and humanity... a remarkable insight into prison life * Amanda Brown, author of The Prison Doctor * West powerfully interweaves an account of teaching philosophy in prison with his own family's history of imprisonment, creating an intellectually thrilling memoir of freedom and constraint. -- Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body Weaving philosophical questions about free will, forgiveness, guilt and shame, with family history and the realities of incarceration. Beautifully written - honest, painful, absurd and sometimes joyful. -- Caitlin Davies, author of Queens of the Underworld A book that every thinking person should read. -- Simon Critchley, author of Continental Philosophy Written with compassion and searing honesty. * The Tablet * The Life Inside is an honest, delicate memoir that doubles as an accessible handbook of philosophical ideas. It expands both heart and mind; I'll never think about prisons - let alone my own freedom and family - the same way again. -- Ciaran Thapar, author of Cut Short It's a rare feat for anyone who works in a prison to capture the smell, the flavour and the taste of the fetid air they share with the prisoners in a book . . . More and more compelling with every turn of the page. -- Erwin James, author of Redeemable These are tender, complicated relationships, and there is candour and wisdom - and no little courage - in how West shows them to us. * The New Humanist * West incorporates philosophical, descriptive, and psychological elements as with a fine Dickensian brush he paints a picture of the gritty details of prison life... profoundly moving. * Philosophy Now * Insightful and sophisticated. * TLS * An astonishing, necessary book . . . brilliantly dispels damaging myths about those whose lives are lived inside. * Lucia Osborne-Crowley * Immersing, entertaining and wonderfully empathetic. * The Bookseller * Drawn with great tenderness. * Prospect * One of the best books I've read this year. Moving, witty and profound, it's a powerfully humane book about a part of life that's defined by inhumanity. * Matt Rowland Hill * Poignant, insightful, and full of philosophical substance. * The Philosophers' Magazine * The Life Inside is extraordinary. * Rob Doyle *