The Jimmy Carter Social Club

Publicly questioning Cuba's political system, Jimmy Carter last week endorsed the homegrown reform movement known as Project Varela, while millions of Cubans watched his speech, which was broadcasted on uncensored television.

A grassroots campaign focused on strengthening the communist-ruled island's civil liberties, Project Varela was presented to Cuba's National Assembly along with 11,000 signatures from the movement's supporters. The referendum proposes asking Cubans if they favor human rights, electoral reform, amnesty for political prisoners, and the right to have a business.

Carter also spoke in favor of normalizing relations between the United States and Cuba, and -- in a move that was sure to please Castro -- he even appealed to Washington to lift it's four-decade trade embargo. The former president criticized his home country in other areas as well, expressing his grievances with our justice system -- bemoaning both our large prison population and our death-penalty policies -- and with the inequities in health care in the United States.

After the speech, Carter threw out the first pitch for an all-star baseball game that pitted top players from eastern and western Cuba against each other. Castro, clad in a baseball uniform, made an appearance as well. He threw a ceremonial pitch at the game, and pretended to coach Carter from the mound.

While it may be years before many of Cuba's top baseball players -- and those legendary cigars -- make it to these shores legally, a wealth of fine Cuban literature has thankfully graced our nation's bookshelves. Here are a few of our favorites:

Singing from the Well
by Reinaldo Arenas
While he's best known for his memoir-turned-movie Before Night Falls, Arenas' quintet of "Pentagonia" books -- his "secret history of Cuba," of which this book is the first volume -- is certainly worth investigating as well. A lyrical and quasi-autobiographical tale of a boy growing up in pre-revolutionary Cuba, this novel creates a world in which fantasy provides one boy's escape from the violence of his everyday life. In the alternate reality he concocts, his disciplinarian mother becomes a woman who wears flowers in her hair, and his cousin, Celestino, shows the boy wonders in the poetry he carves into tree trunks. A truly beautiful novel from the author who has been called the Walt Whitman of Cuba.

The Aguero Sisters
by Cristina Garcia
The story of two Cuban sisters, Reina and Constancia, who have been estranged for 30 years, Garcia's mesmerizing novel explores both the myth and the reality of the island-nation and reveals how the legacy of Castro's revolution has affected one family. While the sexy Reina still lives in Cuba and is surrounded by admiring suitors, the repressed Constancia has emigrated to the United States. After a successful career as a beauty expert, Cosntancia becomes haunted by her past, particularly by her mother's unexplained disappearance. Slowly, the truth behind this tragedy is revealed in this lush novel of magical realism that never fails to captivate.

Dirty Havana Trilogy
by Pedro Juan Gutierrez
Set in 1990s Havana, after the recession caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, this novel in stories chronicles the life and times of pleasure-seeking ex-journalist Pedro Juan, as he attempts to cobble together a hand-to-mouth existence while escaping his plight through booze, pot, and sex. Throughout, the protagonist walks the line between likeable and despicable, but ultimately appears sympathetic in light of all the sleazy squalor that surrounds him. Not for the faint of heart, Dirty Havana Melody reveals the Cuban capitol to be a decaying hotbed of violence, prostitution, and poverty, as well as a city that still manages to charm as it decays. A gritty delight in the tradition of Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski.

In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd
by Ana Menendez
A Book Sense Summer Paperback 76 pick! Molly Beck, an independent bookseller at Quail Ridge Books and Music in Raleigh, NC, calls this book "a masterful collection of connected short stories about Cuban immigrants in Miami" and tells us that "this book offers an insider's view of what life was like, and may still be, in Castro's Cuba."

• Check out the rest of the Summer Paperback 76 picks!

Cuba
photographs by David Alan Harvey
For Americans, traveling to Cuba often involves roundabout flightpaths and a lot bureaucratic haggling, sometimes to no avail. Thanks to photographers like David Alan Harvey, however, a virtual Cuban experience can be had without even having to go through customs. A veteran National Geographic shutterbug, Harvey has produced a collection of rich and colorful images that celebrates two of Cuba's main assets: its people and its landscapes. Complementing the pictures, an essay by Elizabeth Newhouse gives insight into Cuba's history and the current living conditions of its people. An extraordinary portrait, Cuba is sure to have you daydreaming about experiencing the island firsthand.