Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 by Fanny Kembleįindings in Genetics by Gregor Mendel (out of print) “Mr. Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel DurantĬollected Works by Mahatma Gandhi (also rec’d by Martin Luther King Jr., Marina Abramovic & Gloria Steinem) The Abolitionist: or Record of the New-England Anti-slavery Society by Anonymous Read on for a list of the life-changing books Malcolm X picked up in prison, and complement with The Books That Inspired Dr. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive…My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America.” And when later asked by an English writer, “What’s your alma mater?” he simply replied, “Books.” On the influential power of the written word, he said, “I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. He read anything and everything on African history he could find, as well as Oriental philosophy and Asian history, particularly in regards to the rise and fall of white power. This impression is due entirely to my prison studies.” In the book, he describes reading by the glow of a corridor light at night, feigning sleep every hour when the guards made rounds. He credits this self-education with the scholarly presence he would present later in life, writing in his autobiography, “Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or those who read something I’ve said, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade. Likening the dictionary to a miniature encyclopedia, he “learned of people and places and events from history” with each page, finding the first references to the philosophies and teachings he would later devour. So he began frequenting the Norfolk Prison Colony library, where he started copying the entire dictionary out word for word, down to the punctuation marks. When Malcolm X went to prison for larceny at the age of 20, he quickly became frustrated at not being able to express what he wanted to in letters, particularly those to Elijah Muhammad.
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