WHY IS THERE SO MUCH DAN BROWN AT GUANTANAMO BAY?

A recent FOIA request unveiled the contents of the Guantanamo Bay library. We talked to a prison librarian about what makes the collection notable.

By Katie Kilkenny, Pacific Standard, Aug. 22, 2017

What do prisoners get to read, watch, and play at Guantanamo Bay? For years, journalists who have visited the complex's detainee library have sketched a vague and intriguing picture: The library, situated behind barbed wire in Camp Delta, contains religious, social science, and philosophy books, among those representing other disciplines, as well as DVDs and video games. Inmates are not allowed to visit, though those who have been on good behavior can have items delivered to them. Many of the books are written or translated into Arabic, though the collection has a sizable English-language section as well, and the collection has grown substantially over the past few years: In 2008, it had 5,000 volumes, and, today, it now has 35,000 volumes—that's a 700 percent increase in the last nine years, during which time the inmate population fell 83 percent, from 242 inmates to 41.

Last week, a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request threw further light on the facility's collection. On Monday, FOIA logging site Government Attic posted all 634 pages of Guantanamo's inmate library catalog, which the United States Southern Command's Joint Task Force-Guantanamo compiled to respond to a July 25th, 2015, request. Some early findings about the collection: Harry Potter is a clear favorite for the collections manager, as the library has versions translated into Farsi, French, German, Russian, and Spanish; inmates have no shortage of titles by conspiracy auteur Dan Brown or mystery maven Agatha Christie; and the collection has lots of DVDs about monuments.

Read more here.