NOTICE!

For some reason I can add sidebars, but not new posts. Please check back later. I have been working on a variety of things including switching my blog soon from this one, which was set up with my now-defunct West Wisconsin Telcom account. I hope to have my new blog through Gmail up soon. I will provide a link and announcement when I've got everything straight. 7/2/11




Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Recently read: Leonardo Padura’s Havana Gold


This is the fourth in Padura’s Havana Quartet series with Lieutenant Mario Conde. I am fascinated with Padura’s descriptions of life in modern Cuba. In this a school teacher is brutally murdered, drugs seem to be involved, as do some of her students. It was interesting how Padura describes the use of marijuana as rare and extremely scandalous among high schoolers—not what we would expect here where even grade school kids seem to have access to a buffet of drugs. Worth reading, yet I wish the translator would not sprinkle the text with outdated British slang words.

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