A city of tropical heat, sweat, ramshackle beauty, and its very own cadence--a city that always surprises--Havana is brought to pulsing life by New York Times bestselling author Mark Kurlansky.
Mark Kurlansky is the New York Times bestselling author of Milk!, Cod, Salt, Paper, The Basque History of the World, 1968, The Big Oyster, International Night, The Eastern Stars, A Continent of Islands, and The White Man in the Tree and Other Stories. He received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Nonviolence, Bon Appetit’s Food Writer of the Year Award, the James Beard Award, and the Glenfiddich Award. Salt was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. He spent ten years as Caribbean correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. He lives in New York City. www.markkurlansky.com.
Kurlansky reaches back 500 years to track the city's evolving
history, separating out the different strands--Spanish, African,
American, Russian; political, social, musical, culinary--that
slowly steeped to create Havana's piquant blend of static
defiance.
*New York Times, "Summer's Best Travel Books"*
A happy hybrid, Havana: A Subtropical Delirium invokes the Cuban
capital as an occasion to discuss the country's history, politics,
food, architecture, music, religion and passion for baseball . . .
Kurlansky approaches Havana like an Impressionist painter, building
the image of this metropolis of 2 million inhabitants with subtle
brushstrokes.
*The Washington Post*
During his decade-long tenure as the Chicago Tribune's Caribbean
correspondent in the 1980s, Mark Kurlansky began traveling to Cuba.
Since this introduction to the island nation, the journalist grew
to know and love the beautiful, messy capital. Drawing on Havana's
history, Kurlansky starts with Columbus' arrival in 1492 and
examines the city's role in the slave trade and its lasting
effects. But he also brings us into the contemporary culture,
highlighting the city's lively music, dance and art scenes, and
supplying us with recipes to tasty Cuban dishes.
*Smithsonian Magazine, "Ten Best Travel Books of 2017"*
This little gem of a book by the prolific Kurlansky is a revelation
. . . At a most auspicious moment in the history of Cuba and
Havana, Kurlansky, who has spent much time in the country as a
journalist, writes an eloquent love letter to one of the world’s
great cities.
*Booklist*
An affectionate, richly detailed, brief biography of a unique
city.
*Kirkus Reviews*
This extremely readable book is not preachy, not dogmatic, not
shrill. As in life, there is a mixture of both good and evil, and
Kurlansky, a frequent Cuba correspondent, covers it well.
*Library Journal*
Warmly rendered and rich with the insights of an observer intimate
with his subject, this paean to the city of Havana is as engaging
as it is timely. The chapters read like a series of colorful
picture postcards, each one a touchstone of Havana’s history and
Cuban culture.
*Publishers Weekly*
Few countries seem as alluring as this island nation, long
cloistered from American travelers, which welcomed its first
commercial U.S. flight--from Fort Lauderdale--this past August . .
. Havana is Mark Kurlansky's cultural history of a city that he
began visiting regularly in the 1980s, when he covered the
Caribbean for the Chicago Tribune.
*Publishers Weekly, "Spring Travel Books"*
We are in good hands to explore this diabolically alluring city
with New York Times bestselling author Mark Kurlansky in Havana: A
Subtropical Delirium. His is an insider's view of the ramshackle
charm and special cadence of Havana, its tattered and elegant
surprises and pulsating fun-loving life.
*New York Journal of Books*
Havana is sui generis and addictive, and Mark Kurlansky really gets
it.
*BookPage*
Biographical portraits of cities are in vogue. This lively addition
to the genre is essentially a history . . . Kurlansky found
international fame in 1997 with his piscatorial portrait, Cod. The
lengthy list of other titles he has penned is enough to make most
professional writers want to shoot themselves--not only more than a
dozen non-fiction works but novels and children's books as well.
The bugger is also an award-winning food writer. Narrative history
is his forte, however. His vignettes of the figures who moulded
Havana are excellent. The story unfurls through grisly
post-independence dictatorships and ends, inevitably, with Castro.
Kurlansky is even-handed.
*Literary Review*
A highly readable and entertaining account of Cuban history and
culture that I found hard to put down.
*San Francisco Book Review*
HAVANA is as enjoyable as it is fair, and above all features the
beauty and essence of the city that makes it unmistakable. It is a
colorful, descriptive piece that any person should warmly
enjoy.
*Bookreporter.com*
Perfect for anyone headed there or simply wishing to learn more
about a city and country cloaked in romance and mystery.
*BookFilter*
Havana is an electrifying and multi-layered portrait of the
long-elusive city.
*BookBrowse*
Not quite a book on the history of Havana, but rather, the history
of Havana-isms . . . The result is a book that strays from
repeating what most already know about Havana, and instead tells
the origins of the city's unique cultural characteristics . . .
Kurlansky's guide to Havana is an entertaining collage of the
attitudes that have existed throughout its five-century
history.
*Cuba Trade Magazine*
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