Spent years in and out of prison - how a single book helped change everything

Omar Mentesh says a book club helped reshape his life after nearly two decades of repeated jail stays. The 44-year-old, from South Woodford in east London, is featured in a new BBC documentary, The Book That Changed My Life, led by Queen Camilla. Mentesh describes an early electrical accident at age five that damaged his hands and affected his speech, derailing his schooling. He later began copying older brothers who turned to crime, receiving his first prison sentence at 15. While alone at Feltham Young Offender Institution, he found Jack Higgins’ 1970s spy novel The Eagle Has Landed, using it to escape and, eventually, to appreciate reading.