Person
Every book Reginald Dwayne Betts recommended on podcasts
Across 2 podcasts. Every show Reginald Dwayne Betts appears on, in one place — not just one.
Reginald Dwayne Betts’s most recommended books
- The Black Poets by Dudley Randall
- Brothers and Keepers by John Edgar Wideman
- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
- All God's Children by Fox Butterfield
- Black Boy by Richard Wright
- Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare
- Harry Potter by Unknown
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Reginald Dwayne Betts is an American poet, legal scholar, educator and prison reform advocate. At age 16 he committed an armed carjacking, was prosecuted as an adult, and was sentenced to nine years in prison for three felonies. During an appearance on the podcast People I (Mostly) Admire, Betts discussed several books that shaped his life and connected to his experiences with incarceration. He shared how reading Dudley Randall's anthology The Black Poets transformed his life while he was in solitary confinement, particularly noting the emotional impact of a poem by Etheridge Knight. Betts also discussed his love for the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling when asked about favorite fiction books, mentioned a prison performance centered around Kao Kalia Yang's The Latehomecomer, and conversed about William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Furthermore, he talked about whether Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was included in the prison library collection and noted that Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried was part of their collection.
Books recommended by Reginald Dwayne Betts
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The Black Poets
The Black Poets by Dudley Randall is an influential and expansive poetry anthology that preserves and celebrates foundational works of African American verse.
Discussed“and I ended up getting this book called the black poets and it changed my life”
Where to get it
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A Question of Freedom
Discussed“he picked up a question of freedom he's 12 and i was like that's your memoir”
Where to get it
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Brothers and Keepers
Discussed“i'm reading john ankle wide man summary all of john they go out”
Where to get it
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A Gentleman in Moscow
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is a celebrated historical novel that follows an aristocratic Russian count who is sentenced to spend the remainder of his life inside a luxury hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal.
Discussed“so if you get hooked on the Russians you could find the resources like they go dostevsky they go check off they go a gentleman in Moscow which is a very new book to set in Russia”
Where to get it
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All God's Children
Discussed“and when i started purchasing books it's wow i read this book on willy willy basket all god's children and i got the book from the library and i only got it because of the name”
Where to get it
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Black Boy
Black Boy by Richard Wright is a powerful autobiographical chronicle detailing the author's harrowing upbringing in the American South, marked by systemic racism, poverty, and isolation, followed by his awakening through reading and his eventual escape to Chicago.
Discussed“so we got black boy and that's a 300 page book”
Where to get it
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Felon
Discussed“i have been in conversations with people to create um a sort of freedom edition of felon a paperback version that i would give away to 20 000 people”
Where to get it
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Great Expectations
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is a classic Victorian novel following the orphan Pip as he navigates social class, ambition, and personal growth.
Discussed“so like great expectations would be there count of money crystal would be there”
Where to get it
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Hamlet
William Shakespeare's classic play Hamlet follows the tragic Prince of Denmark as he grapples with grief, betrayal, and the heavy burden of avenging his father's murder.
Discussed“and Hamlet and we were holding up Hamlet when he said blah blah”
Where to get it
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Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a globally celebrated fantasy book series following a young wizard's epic struggle against the dark wizard Voldemort.
Discussed“so I'm going to maybe embarrass myself but I love the Harry Potter series”
Where to get it
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K.
Discussed“so I'm going to maybe embarrass myself but I love the Harry Potter series”
Where to get it
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Insurrections
Insurrections by Rion Amilcar Scott is a critically acclaimed collection of short stories that portrays the complex lives of African Americans in a fictional Maryland suburb, exploring themes of community, faith, struggle, and identity.
Discussed“but you also have somebody like Rion Scott who's an amazing short story writer and we had this collection of his called insurrections in the catalog”
Where to get it
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MOBY-DICK; or, THE WHALE
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville is an epic American novel that chronicles the obsessive, self-destructive quest of Captain Ahab to hunt down the giant white whale that maimed him.
Discussed“this is the story of a man obsessed with a whale”
Where to get it
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Omeros
Discussed“then you put derek walcott's um book in there that's that's basically a riff on the iliad and you have them together”
Where to get it
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One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez is a landmark novel that chronicles the multi-generational history of the Buendía family in the fictional town of Macondo and stands as a masterwork of magical realism.
Discussed“so you have your 100 Years of Solitude”
Where to get it
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Range
Range by David J.
Discussed“talking to epstein about absolutely and like range is sort of like like chess is not that interesting”
Where to get it
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Shibumi
Discussed“i can't remember the guy who wrote it but it was in a vein of books that's like shibuya by this cat trevanian and they kind of like thrillers”
Where to get it
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot D%c3%ad%c3%ad%c2%a1z is a celebrated contemporary novel that follows an overweight, sci-fi-obsessed Dominican-American nerd growing up in New Jersey while haunted by an ancestral curse known as fuk%c3%ba.
Discussed“we broke somebody in to perform a brief wondrous life of Oscar Wilde”
Where to get it
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The Color Purple
The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a classic epistolary novel following the life of Celie, an African American woman living in the American South who endures profound hardship and discovers her self-worth.
Discussed“alice walker's book it's the color purple”
Where to get it
The other 14 books Reginald Dwayne Betts recommended or discussed, ranked
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- The Harry Potter Series by Lana A. Whited
- The Hot Hand by Ben Cohen
- The Latehomecomer by Kao Kalia Yang
- The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
- The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
- The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
- The Voltage Effect by John A. List
- The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
- The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
- Train Whistle Guitar by Albert Murray
- White Ninja by Eric Van Lustbader
- Worse Than Slavery by David M. Oshinsky
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
Books Reginald Dwayne Betts wrote
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| 112. Reading Dostoevsky Behind Bars | People I (Mostly) Admire | 2023-08-19 | 17 |
| Dwayne Betts on Reading, Prison, and the Million Book Project | EconTalk | 2020-10-19 | 21 |
Other mentions (2: passing, ad reads, own books)
“and somebody mentions beloved”
“i read david copperfield”