Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger

Hey guys, today's review is on this book based around the inmates of Alcatraz.

I don't know why but I've always found Alcatraz fascinating, not sure why - it was a prison, I can't say I've been curious about other prisons before. I don't know if it's location - I've always wanted to go to San Francisco and this prison was located off shore on a rock. Fascinating.

When I saw that Amazon were giving this book away for free I had to download it for my Kindle. It did take me ages to get around to read it as there was so many other books ahead of it on my list, but when I did I was glad. 

Not only does this book go into details about certain inmates, what they were in there for and what was recorded about them whilst they were there, it also had letters from the inmates to family members and their replies. It was so interesting to read knowing it was written by the actual people, in those moments of what could only be described as living in hell. 

Some of the letters repeat themselves so  I can understand that could get boring for some readers, but all in all it was a great read.  Not only are all the letters typed out so you can read them properly, there are copies of the actual letters, lots of photocopies of photos, as well as history on the prison and the reason it ended up closing its doors. 

This book is no longer free on Amazon, you can buy it for £4.28 on Kindle though.

xx