As we hype up for a new season of Orange is the New Black, we’re hoping for more recommendations for the prison book club! We covered the books of season 1 a few weeks ago, and I’ll be covering the books of season 3 next week, and if you’re loving the book loving prison series then here are the books of season 2 and who we saw reading what!
I took notes while I was watching but I’ll have surely missed some. If you spotted any more add them in the comments. So here we go, character by character, here are the books of OITNB season 2!
Piper Chapman
At the end of Season 1 we saw Piper leave prison and transferred to Chicago where we see her thrown into the deep end in a struggle to survive a harsh regime, as such we don’t see her read much, but we do open the season with Piper lying with a copy of Anna Karenina on her face.
However, eventually she gets back and finds everyone has taken her stuff and when she goes around collecting it up in true prison style, this ‘stuff’ includes The Collected Works of Virginia Woolf, and a copy of Atonement she retrieves from one of the laundry girls.
We see a change of pace for Piper in Season 2 as she toughens up to prison life.
It turns out Red and Vee have history and we’re about to find out all about it in season 2, and we see the women together a lot.
The season starts with a shot of Red reading We are the Goldens by Dana Reinhardt, and in episode three both Red and Vee are seen reading but I couldn’t quite catch those titles, let us know in the comments if you did.
Later in the series in episode 9 we see Vee with a copy of The Fault in Our Stars, though after watching the season, I’m not sure she’d have been moved to tears.
Red & Vee
Taystee
Taystee is a big reader throughout season 1 and works in the library, but Vee’s presence is about to shake up the whole prison!
We do see Taystee reading The Mist in episode 4, and in episode 5 there’s a discussion with Poussay about Alice in Wonderland where Taystee states that the famous ‘we’re all mad here’ quote means that Lewis Carroll must have gone to prison. Towards the end of season 2, in episode 13 we see Taystee reading Outlander.
However my favourite Taystee moment comes when she’s handed a note saying ‘your going to die’, the gif is the end of her rant about the ‘ignorant ass bitch’ who wrote it.
We also see a lot from Healy in this season, the worst prison counsellor in the world. He really doesn’t do himself any favours this season, but we do spot a couple of books he seems to have taken an interest in.
In Episode 11 he’s seen reading Rejuvenile, and in the same episode we hear him discuss the book The End of Men to comedic effect. We already know he’s not keen on lesbians, and women generally tend to scare the life out of him, he seems convinced we’re just looking for ways to get rid of all men (maybe we are!).
Healy
These are the books that stood out to me during season 2, but the literary references never end. There are books in almost every shot and trying to spot what everyone is reading is half the fun of watching!
I still haven’t got around to reading the actual memoir that the series is based on, but one of our readers did and you can read that OITNB review here.
See you soon for a round up of season 3!
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