Fascinating glimpse inside a women’s prison. Orange is the New Black

Author Piper Kerman, now a non-profit communications executive, was convicted of drug smuggling in 2003 for activity she got tangled up in after university 10 years prior. She was given 15 months in prison.

The shocker: She found it wasn’t all that bad.
Her story, told in her book Orange is the New Black, reveals how she made good friends with uneducated, street-hardened women facing much longer sentences than hers.
Blonde, blue-eyed and well-educated, Kerman was not the typical prisoner.
At 34, she learned the endless rules of prison, like enduring humiliating strip searches and navigating relationships with guards.
Her account depicts the personalities she befriends, like the Russian gangster’s wife who ruled the kitchen and Sister Platte, the aged pacifist.
Orange is the New Black is the story of Kerman’s unique and often overwhelming survival in a place where kindness comes in surprising forms.
In short, it is “an absorbing, meditative look at life behind bars.”