May 07, 2018zipread rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit Cuba. A week on the beach at Veradero: beautiful sand; agreeable weather; pleasant company. I'm glad we also built into our holiday two nights in Havana. I have never visited a place quite like it: a tribute to deferred maintenance and the vagaries of the climate. Building fronts with no building behind them, brought to mind the streets of post-war Munich or Wuerzburg. Most of this the result of the US embargoes going back to the sixties: there is no paint in Cuba. And yet in spite of all of this, people who are friendly and curious; the streets are safe if potholed; the natives do not tote guns --- no NRA here.
The is the book I would have liked to have read before going there. This is the history of the city; of the buildings; of the customs; of the people. The authors; the polticians; the propagandists; Ernest Hemingway; daiquiris; la Floridita; the pirates and the slaves.
It's a small book suitable for toting along. Kurlansky writes quickly without belabouring any one point in an ironic numerous style. Does that sometimes verge on cynicism?
For sure an eye-opener.
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Havana