I recently finished “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,’’ Bryan Stevenson’s extraordinary memoir.

The chapter Stevenson calls “Mitigation’’ feels like the most important passage I have ever read anywhere.

Stevenson, a lawyer who works to free the unjustly convicted or egregiously sentenced and to end the death penalty, starts the chapter with this assertion: “America’s prisons have become warehouses for the mentally ill.’’

He goes on to introduce Avery Jenkins, imprisoned for the murder of a man who was stabbed multiple times, as if his attacker were in a frenzy of fear.

Perhaps I should call them book listens.

When I give a book talk, I get so much out of hearing what others are experiencing and thinking about. That was certainly the case at the Ujamaa Holiday Market, where I spent two hours at a book table organized by the Colorado Committee on Africa and the Caribbean.

One woman I spoke with mentioned that a boy at her son’s middle school came in the day after the U.S. presidential elections declaring: “I’m glad I’m not black. They’ve been killing the black people. Now they will kill them all.’’

When the credits rolled after a screening of “Hidden Figures,” my fellow movie-goers applauded enthusiastically. I joined in the clapping for the black women scientists we’d seen portrayed on the big screen and for a movie that made us feel good.

I’m glad I also read Margot Lee Shetterly’s book on which the movie is based. Shetterly made me think.

A movie that exactly replicated a book would be unwatchably long, talky and confusing. Screenwriters need to make choices. They roll several characters into one who can represent the stories without cluttering the narrative. They add a bit of drama to transform events into emotionally resonant metaphor. They crank up the romance to keep us cheering.