The Work

It starts with a letter from an incarcerated person asking for some books. Requests from readers are wide ranging in genre — self-help, mysteries, fantasy, drawing primers, plumbing, woodworking, landscaping skills, poetry, religion, history, grammar & writing books, and more.

Subterranean Books – our liason-bookstore – receives these letters on our behalf. When we pick up the letters from them, we often purchase dictionaries and thesauri at the same time; one of our most frequently requested items.

We fill the requests mostly from our donated collection. We receive donations from individuals, Subterranean Bookstore, Washington & Saint Louis Universities, via book drives on our behalf by local churches or student organizations. Books outside the interest of our readers, we sell to used book vendors or offer at book fairs to help with postage.

Each book package contains an address label, an inventory sheet of the contents, and a list of the topics in our collection.

We generally send two books per package depending on shipping costs & combined weight of books. Each package requires solid wrapping to withstand the rigors of media postage delivery.

Multiple weekly runs to the Post Office get it all sent off.