Sense of Place Stars: Cuba

Fiction and Nonfiction Titles

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

Fiction

  • Havana: An Earl Swagger Novel
    Author: Hunter, Stephen
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 0743238087 Date: 2003
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    It is 1953 and Cuba is at its lush, tropical, and glamorous best. Only one small problem threatens this situation--the rise of a daring revolutionary named Fidel Castro. Now, legendary sniper Earl Swagger has been called in by the CIA to take him out.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Historical Crime Fiction Stars
    Updated 8.13.03
  • Cuba Libre
    Author: Leonard, Elmore
    Publisher: Delacorte Price: $ 28.95 ISBN: 0385323832 Date: 1998
    starPWstarKirkusstarLJ
    Set in Cuba just before the Spanish-American War, Elmore Leonard's latest novel is filled with high adventure, history, romance, and, of course, nefarious undertakings. Circumstance, nonchalance, and a remarkable streak of bad luck have turned Ben Tyler from cowboy to bank robber to convict, without ever changing his genial disposition. On yet another crooked attempt to return to the straight and narrow, Tyler finds himself in Havana agreeing to complete a series of deals that will completely turn his luck around.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Historical Crime Fiction Stars
  • In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd
    Author: Menendez, Ana
    Publisher: Grove $ 23 ISBN:0802116884 Date: 2001
    starBooklist
    This debut collection of tales about Cuban immigrants attempting to make new lives in America is presented by a Pushcart Prize winner, touching on themes of the hopes and disappointments of post-revolutionary Castro Cuba, cultural ties that bind family, and more.
    Suggested Reading: Latino/Latina Stars | Debuts
    Updated 4/26/01
  • The Crook Factory
    Author: Simmons, Dan
    Publisher: Avon Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0380973685 Date: 1999
    starBookliststarKirkus
    For readers who loved The Alienist and Los Alamos, this stunning novel of historical suspense imagines Ernest Hemingway as a spy in Cuba in 1942.

Nonfiction

  • Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana
    Author: Bardach, Ann Louise
    Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375504893 Date: 2002
    starKirkus
    Bardach expertly explores the troubled waters of U.S.-Cuban relations since Fidel Castro came to power. Cuba Confidential examines the human consequences of this estranged relationship and deflates the mirror-image rhetoric of the "two Cubas"--the Communist regime on the island and the Cuban-exile community of south Florida.
    Updated 9.30.02
  • Waiting for Snow in Havana
    Author: Eire, Carlos
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 0743219651 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Narrated with the urgency of a confession, Waiting for Snow in Havana is both an ode to a paradise lost and an exorcism. More than that, it captures the terrible beauty of those times in readers lives when they are certain they have died--and then are somehow, miraculously, reborn.
    Updated 12.16.02