Well, I'm not sure if I should recommend this, but I think it's important for everyone to read, after the Bible of course.

Please don't take this the wrong way, because I'm not trying to be a smart ass. My only hesitation is that it might be depressing to read this in jail.

Nevertheless, I would recommend "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The full three volumes.

It is worth the journey.

May God watch over you and your family.

Oscar Wilde's essays and letters that he wrote while in prison and THE BALLAD OF THE READING GAOL

The longest series I have read is by Louis Penny. There are like 18 books, all about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, based in Canada, mainly Quebec. He is one of the best characters I have ever read. So if you are looking for a long ass series, keep you occupied for a while, I recommend this.

The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.

I cant remember what weir book I read before but I enjoyed it. Thanks!

It's also visually a very cool and unique book. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Stephen King - Fairy Tale was a pleasure to read

Should have been a joke about financial crime...

I like the sound of this a lot, putting it towards the front of the list. Thanks!

Crime & Punishment

You might like Ajahn Brahm's books.

Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. First couple of books is a case of the author finding the right style. However after those the books flow better. Sci/Fantasy humour setting. Around 20 books in the series.

“The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues”

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

Air America. Is about CIAs covert airforce they created. Mainly creating various companies to support their covert actions.

“Air America – a secret airline run by the CIA – flew missions no one else would touch, from General Claire Cennault’s legendary Flying Tigers in WW II to two brutal decades cruising over the bomb-savaged jungles of Southeast Asia. Their pilots dared all and did all – a high-rolling, fast-playing bunch of has-beens and hellraisers whose motto was ‘Anything, Anywhere, Anytime’. Whether it was delivering food and weapons or spooks and opium, Air America was the one airline where you didn’t need reservations – just a hell of a lot of courage and a willingness to fly to the bitter end.”

Deadly Illusions. In-depth and a heavy read. About KGB spymaster who recruited the Cambridge Spy Ring( large spy scandal in British government from 1930s -50s). Then played a game of wits against Stalin and US/UK governments when he defected to The West.

Just started on Blackmail of a Nation part 1. All about US intelligence agencies and their partnership with Organised Crime and how their relationship evolved over the decades. Look up Operation Underworld.

Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, its a German author so you have to check if its available in English too

Quick google search and I'm intrigued! Thanks!

Some books/series' that should last you some time:

Fantasy

1. Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson (4 books out so far, all with more than 1k pages)
2. Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (Standalone brick of a fantasy novel)
3. The Green Bone Sage by Fonda Lee (Completed series with 3 books that center a mafia family + really tight martial-arts inspired magic system)
4. Babel by R.F. Kuang (Standalone fantasy)
5. Locked Tomb Series (3 books out so far, fun and mysterious tone to each of the books so you could spend lots of hours piecing together information? - Necromancy and SPACE involved!)

Contemporary

1. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
2. The Book Thief by Mark Zusak
3. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
4. Stoner by John Williams

Apologies for the lack of formatting OP and descriptions for the latter half of the recs, I realized that you might be going to prison real soon so I will drop the list here and see if you have any interest in the titles! Best of luck my friend in there, take care of yourself and you'll come back stronger and better than ever! Have a good time with all the books too, the recommendations here seem great :)

Seconding the Alchemist…the gorgeous imagery just lifts you up out of reality and takes you somewhere magical.

Already read, great prison read!😂😉🤙

Interesting... adding to my list, thanks!

Fiction: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. Very ponderous, lots to think over and digest.

Non-fiction: Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis. Assuming you’re in the US, this book provides some great insight into how we ended up with the current system of incarceration. Remains relevant despite being written near the start of the millennium.

Good luck friend. (edit: formatting)

I'd recommend Jonathan strange and Mr norrel by Susanna Clarke if you fancy a historical fantasy that will keep you going for a while. It is about 2 magicans that bring the lost art of magic back to England during the Napelonic wars. It explores Faerie Folklore in a very interesting way and makes Fairies terrifying in a way they rarely are modern depictions.

The entire bibliography of Kazuo Ishiguro I'd say is worth your time but specially remains of the day. He has spent his entire career exploring memory and how we look back on our and has his own instinct style of unreliable narration.

Pale Fire by Vladmir Nabokov is an interesting novel in which the narrative takes place inside the Analysis of a poem by a friend of a poet that has recently died. Its a bit of a puzzle of a novel but I wouldn't say it's overly difficult.

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg is an interesting classic of Scottish literature about a Calvinist who commits terrible crimes that are justified through his religion. It has alot of unreliable and gives you the story from the main characters point of view as well as an outsiders point of view looking back on the events in the future so it's very interesting.

Neil Gaimans is great at short stories and has an interesting collection called smoke and mirror that has a great variety of different stories that mostly fantasy elements.

Anyway they are the books I enjoyed recently if any of those catch your interest.

Thanks!

The Malazan series should get you through a few years. It's stupidly good and epic

A Gentleman in Moscow

The Three Body Problem trilogy

All the Stephen King

I always recommend David Zindell. Neverness and A Requiem for Homo Sapiens, plus The Idiot Gods.

The Bahagavad-gita, the Qur'an, the bible.

And if you want to sleep well. Books that prepare u for IT-sertificates. Think MOUS, MCP - Stuff that can land u a job in tech support. It is not hard if you can handle the boredom :) And you take the examn after u get out. At an exam centre.

The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons.