Beantown Cubans

From the acclaimed author of Miami Manhunt and Boston Boys Club, comes a witty, new, warmhearted novel of friendship, familia, and finding a place to call home--even in a city where it's almost impossible to get an authentic Cuban sandwich. . . Carlos Martin is twenty-seven years old and ready for a change. Cuban-born and Miami-raised, the cute but slightly awkward high school teacher figures that Boston is about as far from the crazy South Beach social scene as he could get--and a way to escape the bittersweet reminders of his recently departed mother. Life in "Beantown" is quite a culture shock--until Carlos meets Tommy Perez, another Miami transplant who quickly shows him the ropes. Now, in the course of one wildly unpredictable year, Carlos is going to learn to embrace his newfound independence, as well as his individuality. . . Praise for Johnny Diaz and Miami Manhunt "The excellent Johnny Diaz has produced another hilarious arresting novel about that most impossible of all quests: finding love, true love, in Miami." --Juno Diaz, New York Times bestselling author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

As words and stories are increasingly disseminated through digital means, the significance of the book as object—whether pristine collectible or battered relic—is growing as well. Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books spotlights the personal libraries of thirteen favorite novelists who share their collections with readers. Stunning photographs provide full views of the libraries and close-ups of individual volumes: first editions, worn textbooks, pristine hardcovers, and childhood companions. In her introduction, Leah Price muses on the history and future of the bookshelf, asking what books can tell us about their owners and what readers can tell us about their collections. Supplementing the photographs are Price's interviews with each author, which probe the relation of writing to reading, collecting, and arranging books. Each writer provides a list of top ten favorite titles, offering unique personal histories along with suggestions for every bibliophile. Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books features the personal libraries of Alison Bechdel, Stephen Carter, Junot Díaz, Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Pinker, Lev Grossman and Sophie Gee, Jonathan Lethem, Claire Messud and James Wood, Philip Pullman, Gary Shteyngart, and Edmund White.

"[DePalma] renders a Cuba few tourists will ever see . . . You won't forget these people soon, and you are bound to emerge from DePalma's bighearted account with a deeper understanding of a storied island . . . A remarkably revealing glimpse into the world of a muzzled yet irrepressibly ebullient neighbor."--The New York Times Modern Cuba comes alive in a vibrant portrait of a group of families's varied journeys in one community over the last twenty years. Cubans today, most of whom have lived their entire lives under the Castro regime, are hesitantly embracing the future. In his new book, Anthony DePalma, a veteran reporter with years of experience in Cuba, focuses on a neighborhood across the harbor from Old Havana to dramatize the optimism as well as the enormous challenges that Cubans face: a moving snapshot of Cuba with all its contradictions as the new regime opens the gate to the capitalism that Fidel railed against for so long. In Guanabacoa, longtime residents prove enterprising in the extreme. Scrounging materials in the black market, Cary Luisa Limonta Ewen has started her own small manufacturing business, a surprising turn for a former ranking member of the Communist Party. Her good friend Lili, a loyal Communist, heads the neighborhood's watchdog revolutionary committee. Artist Arturo Montoto, who had long lived and worked in Mexico, moved back to Cuba when he saw improving conditions but complains like any artist about recognition. In stark contrast, Jorge García lives in Miami and continues to seek justice for the sinking of a tugboat full of refugees, a tragedy that claimed the lives of his son, grandson, and twelve other family members, a massacre for which the government denies any role. In The Cubans, many patriots face one new question: is their loyalty to the revolution, or to their country? As people try to navigate their new reality, Cuba has become an improvised country, an old machine kept running with equal measures of ingenuity and desperation. A new kind of revolutionary spirit thrives beneath the conformity of a half century of totalitarian rule. And over all of this looms the United States, with its unpredictable policies, which warmed towards its neighbor under one administration but whose policies have now taken on a chill reminiscent of the Cold War.

Moncada is one of the first words young Cuban biologist Felipe Triana learned as he was growing up. He was taught to say the word, and he was told that it was not just for him, but for every Cuban. Felipe, like many of the other young Cubans, has known nothing but the fifty-year-old revolution which still controls their lives but offers them less and less. An unconventional diplomatic story, Moncada follows the lives of Felipe and six other ordinary Cubans in the week leading up to the major revolutionary festival of Moncada thats celebrated on July 26. As the day of the festivities draws near, Felipe examines the course of his life in this country. From the economy, to the living conditions, baseball, popular Cuban culture, and the history of the revolution, Moncada presents the essence of present-day Cuba through the eyes of those living there. It gives flavor to a country whose people are deprived of expressing themselves.