Piper’s Prison Book Club: 10 Books from Orange Is the New Black

July 28 2015
Share Piper’s Prison Book Club: 10 Books from Orange Is the New Black

If you have just awoken surrounded by cereal bowls with no idea of what’s happened in the world in the past three days, odds are you have just finished binge-watching season three of Netflix’s runaway hit Orange Is the New Black. Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because we have compiled a list of our ten favorite books featured throughout the season to keep you reading until season four.

The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold

In this luminous novel, 14-year-old Susie Salmon dies a violent death and goes to heaven while her family struggles to pick up the pieces left in her wake. While incarcerated, Flaca reads Alice Sebold’s haunting classic on Mother’s Day, perhaps hinting at the discord in Flaca’s own past.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold

After her death in 1973, Susie Salmon is adjusting to her new home in heaven, and watching life on earth continue without her. Her friends are trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer is trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family is unraveling. From above, Susie learns more about the man who took her life, and watches as her father searches for answers.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

Celebrate the Fourth of July with These 9 Great American Reads

By Off the Shelf Staff | July 4, 2018

Our 13 Favorite Ghost Stories—Just in Time for Halloween!

By Off the Shelf Staff | October 26, 2017

13 Banned Books That Will Always Have a Place on Our Shelves

By Off the Shelf Staff | September 29, 2016

13 Important Stories to Celebrate Banned Books Week

By Off the Shelf Staff | October 1, 2015

Piper’s Prison Book Club: 10 Books from Orange Is the New Black

By Hilary Krutt | July 28, 2015

Close
Freakonomics
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

When an unlikely friendship blossoms between Big Boo and Pennsatucky, Boo explains supply and demand with the help of this now ubiquitous exploration of economics.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
Freakonomics
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

When an unlikely friendship blossoms between Big Boo and Pennsatucky, Boo explains supply and demand with the help of this now ubiquitous exploration of economics.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

13 Smart Books from @HotDudesReading’s Instagram

By Erica Nelson | August 23, 2016

Piper’s Prison Book Club: 10 Books from Orange Is the New Black

By Hilary Krutt | July 28, 2015

Close
Sophomore Year Is Greek to Me
by Meredith Zeitlin

It’s a tough Mother’s Day for Red, who is feeling betrayed by her husband and sons. Meredith Zeitlin’s tale of a high school girl’s adventures in Greece is just the light, escapist read that she needs.

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo iBooks logo
Sophomore Year Is Greek to Me
Meredith Zeitlin

It’s a tough Mother’s Day for Red, who is feeling betrayed by her husband and sons. Meredith Zeitlin’s tale of a high school girl’s adventures in Greece is just the light, escapist read that she needs.

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

Piper’s Prison Book Club: 10 Books from Orange Is the New Black

By Hilary Krutt | July 28, 2015

Close
The Goldfinch
by Donna Tartt

In this season, Piper brazenly takes the helm of a risky prison enterprise. Donna Tartt’s hugely popular and Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of survival and reinvention perfectly accompanies Piper’s transformation into a Litchfield bigwig.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo
The Goldfinch
Donna Tartt

The novel that took the world by storm and won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is (finally!) out in paperback. A mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, it is an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo

MENTIONED IN:

7 Striking Character Voices in Coming-of-Age Novels

By Sarah Woodruff | February 18, 2022

Creativity Chronicles: 7 Books About Art and Artists

By Holly Claytor | March 26, 2020

9 Fantastic Books To Read Based On Your Favorite Classic Holiday Movie

By Alice Martin | December 5, 2019

8 Books to Read Before You Watch the Movie This Summer

By Tolani Osan | July 1, 2019

Watch, I Mean, Read What Happens Live!, with Andy Cohen

By Julianna Haubner | December 20, 2017

13 Books Bird Lovers Will Flock To

By Amy Hendricks | September 20, 2016

Close
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls
by David Sedaris

When a bedbug scare leads to a mass burning of the prison library’s books, the inmates memorialize the lost tomes. These include, in Poussey’s words, “All the David Sedarises.” His newest laugh-out-loud funny book is sure to be missed.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls
David Sedaris

When a bedbug scare leads to a mass burning of the prison library’s books, the inmates memorialize the lost tomes. These include, in Poussey’s words, “All the David Sedarises.” His newest laugh-out-loud funny book is sure to be missed.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

Readers’ Choice: The Top 10 Most Shelved Books in August

By Off the Shelf Staff | August 31, 2018

A Bookseller Recommends 6 Books You’ll Want to Read Again and Again

By Mary Laura Philpott | August 20, 2018

Piper’s Prison Book Club: 10 Books from Orange Is the New Black

By Hilary Krutt | July 28, 2015

Close
This Is Where I Leave You
by Jonathan Tropper

During the book funeral, the women pay their respects to Tropper’s hilarious and touching family drama alongside the works of literature’s other notable Jonathans—namely, Jonathan Swift, Jonathan Lethem, and Jonathan Franzen.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
This Is Where I Leave You
Jonathan Tropper

Simultaneously mourning the death of his father and the demise of his marriage, Judd joins his dysfunctional family as they reluctantly sit shiva and spend seven days and nights under the same roof. This Is Where I Leave You is a humorous, emotional novel about the ties that bind—whether we like it or not.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

10 Books That Will Make You Feel At Home, No Matter Where You Are

By Alice Martin | November 20, 2019

6 Books to Read If You Loved “Lady Bird”

By Elizabeth Breeden | March 28, 2018

Love “This Is Us?” Here Are the 11 Books You Need to Read

By Julianna Haubner | January 3, 2018

Who Says You Can’t Go Home Again? You Can in These 5 Books

By Stu Smith | November 22, 2017

12 Literary Families to Invite Over for Thanksgiving

By Off the Shelf Staff | November 19, 2015

Piper’s Prison Book Club: 10 Books from Orange Is the New Black

By Hilary Krutt | July 28, 2015

Close
The Old Man and The Sea
by Ernest Hemingway

In a flashback to Nicky’s drug-addled, criminal past in New York City, she and a friend discuss a rare signed first edition of Hemingway’s most famous book.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo
The Old Man and The Sea
Ernest Hemingway

Read with a Mojito

This classic is the story of follows an old Cuban fisherman who is down on his luck and engaged in a relentless and agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Pair this one with a classic mojito in a nod to papa Hemingway’s Cuban home.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo

MENTIONED IN:

Summer Reading Challenge: 7 Recs to Kickstart Your Season

By Holly Claytor | June 18, 2020

12 Addictive Reads You Can Finish in a Single Flight

By Danielle Bucco | November 26, 2019

5 Second Summaries: THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

By Julianna Haubner | June 30, 2018

Best Beach Reads: 9 Books to Read While Sipping Your Favorite Beach Cocktails

By Off the Shelf Staff | June 6, 2017

Piper’s Prison Book Club: 10 Books from Orange Is the New Black

By Hilary Krutt | July 28, 2015

Close
A Scanner Darkly
by Philip K. Dick

As Alex becomes increasingly convinced that someone in the prison is out to get her, she quotes this classic science-fiction novel: “It’s strange how paranoia can link up with reality now and then.”

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo iBooks logo
A Scanner Darkly
Philip K. Dick

As Alex becomes increasingly convinced that someone in the prison is out to get her, she quotes this classic science-fiction novel: “It’s strange how paranoia can link up with reality now and then.”

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

Piper’s Prison Book Club: 10 Books from Orange Is the New Black

By Hilary Krutt | July 28, 2015

Close
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
by Karen Joy Fowler

As Red struggles to preserve both her biological and her adopted prison families, she reads this beautifully written tale of an unconventional family and the heartbreaking consequences of their good intentions.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Karen Joy Fowler

“WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES is one of those completely absorbing books that makes the rest of the world disappear, while at the same time reminding us all too clearly of the world we come from and its occasional cruelty.”

Read the full review by Midge Raymond here.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

Readers’ Choice: Our Top 25 Most Popular Books of the Year!

By Off the Shelf Staff | December 30, 2019

The Best of 2019: The Top 10 Reviews of the Year

By Off the Shelf Staff | December 24, 2019

Readers’ Choice: Our 10 Most Popular Books in August

By Off the Shelf Staff | August 30, 2019

We’re All Completely Obsessed with This Award-Winning Novel

By Mary Doria Russell | August 7, 2019

Off the Shelf Turns 5: The Top 10 Reviews of All Time

By Off the Shelf Staff | March 18, 2019

13 of Off the Shelf’s Favorite Book Recommendations from 2016

By Off the Shelf Staff | December 27, 2016

Close
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
by Stieg Larsson

While formulating the ultimate revenge plot, Big Boo references Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander’s quest for retribution in Stieg Larsson’s classic trilogy.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson

Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist, and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander team up to investigate the 40 year disappearance of Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families. Stieg Larsson's THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

Spies, Sleuths, and Undercover Agents: 7 Books About Women Who Crack the Case

By Holly Claytor | August 13, 2020

Solace in Solitude: 11 Refreshing Books for the Introverted Soul

By Sarah Jane Abbott | July 16, 2020

Our Top 20 Books from the 21st Century (So Far)

By Off the Shelf Staff | January 15, 2020

10 Fashion Icons from Novels We Love

By Kerry Fiallo | August 2, 2018

A Peek Behind Sarah Jane’s Shelf

By Off the Shelf Staff | February 22, 2018

Best Beach Reads: 14 (Extra) Long Books for (Extra) Long Days at the Beach

By Kerry Fiallo | July 3, 2017

Close

You must be logged in to add books to your shelf.

Please log in or sign up now.