THE LATINA BOOK CLUB

The taste of you remains Clinging to paradise But as the distance from you grows All that my heart ever knows Hunger for your kiss Longing for your touch Beautiful Maria of my soul --Lyrics, Beautiful Maria of My Soul Song by Los Lobos THE MAMBO KINGS PLAY SONGS OF LOVE By Oscar Hijuelos (1989) Farrar Straus Giroux Winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize in Literature We loved the book, the movie and the sequel !!! SUMMARY:   It's 1949 and two young Cuban musicians make their way from Havana to the grand stage of New York City. It is the era of mambo, and the Castillo brothers, workers by day, become stars of the dance halls by night, where their orchestra plays the lush, sensuous, pulsing music that earns them the title of the Mambo Kings. This is their moment of youth, exuberance, love, and freedom―a golden time that decades later is remembered with nostalgia and deep affection. Hijuelos's marvelous portrait of the Castillo brothers, their families,...

Farrar Straus Giroux, 1984 All lovers of justice are invited to attend a public demonstration of solidarity with the idealists of Canudos and with all rebels the world over,  to be held in the Praça da Liberdade  on the fourth of October at 6 p.m. Called a “modern tragedy on the grand scale,” a “thunderous novel,” a “masterpiece.” THE WAR OF THE END OF THE WORLD is all that and more. Canudos is the Wild West and Neverland all rolled into one. There are no laws, no taxes, no marriage, no worries. Sounds like paradise, but there is always a snake in the grass, and this one is the fictional Brazilian government determined to claim the backlands, crush the outcasts and impose their rule.   Freedom fighters or bandits?   The battle is inevitable, but readers must ask, who truly wins the war? SUMMARY:   Deep within the remote backlands of nineteenth-century Brazil lies Canudos, home to all the damned of the earth: prostitutes, bandits, be...

Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2001 “There’s nothing a Mejicano or Mejicana loves more than the burning, stinging pain of thwarted, frustrated, hopeless, soulful, take-it-to-the-grave love. Nothing gets us going more than what I call rabia/love of the te-juro-you’re-going-to-pay-for-all-the-suffering-you-caused-me variety.”   --Tere Teresina “Tere” Vila is looking for love in all the wrong places.   She’s divorced, 30-something Chicana working “in the hinterlands of life” in New Mexico, a small dusty town near El Paso, Texas. The love of her life is Lucio, a smooth-talking ne'er-do-well who will never leave his wife and ties Tere's heart in knots with a string of empty promises. Her diversions are few but intense, and center around her best friend, Irma, and her membership in the Pedro Infante Fan Club.   For those of you who don’t recognize the name, Pedro Infante was the Mexican Elvis Presley. His movies from the 1940s and 1950s were viewed ...