Reading List

Memoirs/Autobiographies:

  • Waiting for Snow in Havana, by Carlos Eire
  • Learning to Die in Miami, by Carlos Eire
  • This is Cuba, by Ben Corbett
  • Cuban Diaries by Isadora Tattlin
  • Havana Real by Yoani Sanchez
  • My Lost Cuba by Celso Gonzalez-Falla
  • Dancing with Cuba by Alma Guillermoprieto

History:

  • The History of Cuba by Clifford Staten
  • Havana Nocturne:  How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost it to the Revolution by T.J. English
  • Havana:  Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis by Roberto Sergre, Mario Coyula and Joseph L. Scarpaci
  • The Sugar King of Havana by John Paul Rathbone
  • Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba by Tom Gjelten
  • Cuba in the Special Period:  Culture and Ideology in the 1990s by Ariana Hernandez-Reguant
  • Back Channel to Cuba:  The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana by William Leogrande and Peter Kombluh
  • Havana Bay by Martin Cruz Smith

Anthropology/Journalism/Political Science & Other Genres:

  • The Artistry of Afro-Cuban Bata Drumming by Ken Schweitzer
  • Open for Business:  Building the New Cuban Economy by Richard Feinberg
  • Cuba on the Verge by Leila Guerriero
  • The Other Side of Paradise:  Life in the New Cuba by Julia Cooke
  • Cuba:  Castro, Revolution and the End of the Embargo (Lightning Guides)
  • Tourism and Informal Encounters in Cuba by Valerio Simoni
  • Cuban Color in Tourism and La Lucha by L. Kaifa Roland
  • Sartre on Cuba, by Jean-Paul Sartre

Novels (and this includes novels that are ridiculous and/or terrible):

  • Dreaming in Cuban, by Cristina Garcia
  • The Cuban Affair, by Nelson DeMille
  • Cayo Hueso/Cuba Libre, by Michael Ritchie
  • Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner
  • King of Cuba by Cristina Garcia
  • Cuba Libre, by Elmore Leonard
  • Havana Fever by Leonardo Padura

Other Books

  • The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
  • A Corner of the World, Mylene Fernández-Pintado
  • Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene
  • Mea Cuba, Guillermo Cabrera Infante
  • Farewell to the Sea, Reinaldo Arena
  • Cuba Confidential, Ann Louise Bardach
  • An Island Called Home:  Returning to Jewish Cuba, Ruth Behar
Aaron (an avid reader) also adds:
 

“Ruth Behar is a well known anthropologist and writer.  I just discovered her webpage on Cuba.  She not only had to leave Cuba after the revolution, but has returned and written a book about it. Here is Ruth’s Reading List for Cuba (note it includes Hemingway, and Greene):”

 https://www.ruthbehar.com/writings/on-cuba/