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"Havana knew me by my shoes," begins Tom Miller's lively and entertaining account of his sojourn for more than eight months traveling through Cuba, mixing with its literati and black marketers, its cane cutters and cigar rollers. Its best-known personalities and ordinary citizens talk to him about the U.S. embargo and tell their favorite Fidel jokes as they stand in line for bread at the Socialism or Death Bakery.
Miller provides a running commentary on Cuba's food shortages, exotic sensuality, and baseball addiction as he follows the scents of Graham Greene, Joséarti, Ernest Hemingway, and the Mambo Kings. The result of this informed and adventurous journey is a vibrant, rhythmic portrait of a land and people too long shielded from American eyes.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
September 9, 2008 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780786726226
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780786726226
- File size: 843 KB
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Languages
- English
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Levels
- Lexile® Measure: 1010
- Text Difficulty: 6-8
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Reviews
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November 2, 1992
According to a joke making the rounds among Cubans during the author's six-month stay in 1990, the three great triumphs of the Cuban revolution are education, health and athletics; the three great failures are breakfast, lunch and dinner. But while the shortages were inescapable, Miller ( The Panama Hat Trail ) was impressed by the highly literate, lively people he met, the good libraries, the health care, the beauty of the landscape and the widespread devotion of the people to Castro, despite Cuba's increasing hardships. Miller's closest relations were with sophisticated intellectuals, but he joined the masses to stand on lines for diminishing goods, to ride the local buses, to tour the country and to listen to the gossip, complaints and jokes as well as the loyal defenses. (He loved the ice cream too.) In late 1991, Miller returned briefly to find his friends girding for the even greater sacrifices imposed by the loss of Russian aid and the continuing U.S. boycott. Although Cuba remains off-limits for most Americans due to the Trading with The Enemy Act referred to in the title, this even-handed and affectionate account of the country and its people makes an entertaining armchair substitute for a visit. -
April 29, 1996
Journalist Miller's account of over eight months spent traveling through Cuba details the daily life of the people from Havana to Guantanamo.
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