Enduring Cuba by Zoe Bran

The double entendre of the title is extremely appropriate. Cuba has endured throughout the past 500 years of what is often referred to as the modern era of world civilizations, or the fourth wave, and it will continue to endure. No question about that. The other meaning, that life in Cuba is not easy, and there is an element of it's people enduring hardships, is also appropriate.
I read this Loney Planet publication, a travelogue of sorts, while I was myself in Cuba. I have read (and often chronicled here) many books written about Cuba, set in Cuba, or which have included Cuba peripherally, and while there are not many that I would recommend saving until you are actually in Cuba, this one would fit the bill.
This is no ordinary travel book. It's definitely not a go-here, do-this kind of book. It's a book about the author's travels around Cuba, where she asks "what next?". She chronicles her adventures in Cuba through stories about the people that she meets and the answers they give her, while at the same time speaking of interesting places and events. You get to see the many different faces of Cuba, literally and figuratively. It's about black, white, and mulatto--cultures that are both separate and mixed. Surprisingly it's also a history book (not a lot, but enough to make it interesting). The book both dispels and confirms many of the beliefs that westerners have about Cuba. You get a taste of the struggles that Cubans go through on a daily basis and well as the strength that they all have to continue in spite of the odds. Of course it's also about politics. How could it not be? It's about enduring Cuba, for those that are Cuban, those that choose to live there, as well as for those that travel there. Everyone endures Cuba in a different way and for different reasons.
Too often many of us travel only to go from airport to resort and back to airport again. Que lastima! She often skips the hotels to stay in casas particulares (I hope that is the correct way to make casa particular plural). She entrusts her welfare often with strangers. She goes places that even some Cubans won't go. And she tells us what she learned from all that. She even ends the book well.