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1959 Pontiac Bonneville. Photo by Lydia Bogner. One of the nicest things about writing a book is having readers pop up out of the woodwork and regale you with their tales of retracing your steps, doing it better, faster, slower, weirder (and even enthusing about some of the same obscure obsessions as you...) Lydia Bogner, who hails from Massachusetts, discovered the Handsomest Man after taking a "lazy, 5 day cruise for my daughter and I, via Miami." Finding your book at the library was pure serendipity and truly has strengthened and magnified my memories of our one day in Havana. Reading it enhanced both my understanding of the Cuban people and my memories. Having been to San Salvador 3 years ago, I can't help but compare the survival instincts of these 2 different cultures. Salvadoreans must survive the gang violence, and Cubans must work and eat one day at a time...  Love me, love my Cuban car So what was the first thing Lydia went looking for in Cub

The Handsomest Man in Cuba is now available as a Google e-book .  UPDATE: The rights for the Handsomest Man in Cuba have been reverted back to me. That means the e-book has been decommissioned. You can still easily get hold of copies on Amazon for next to zip, lucky you! Watch this space for talking book (in my alarming Aussie accent) and a new kind of e-book with input from YOU, dear reader!  +++ If you want it for your e-reader, it looks like you can read 50 pages for free, and then there's a link to it in my lemonade stand . I'm not sure if the color photos are included. But now, you can save a tree (well at least, a fully-formed one). If you're an American, you can read it without the cover arousing suspicion! You can also read 3 chapters on my handsomest webpage on Cuba www.handsomestmanincuba.com Thank you in advance for purchasing it and supporting people who write things - careful, you might encourage us to write some more! My friend Lynn souve

Rare footage of Havana, Cuba in the 1950's. For more videos, visit our site:  www.CasaDelCarajo.com Here, captured on film, is the drama, passion, intrigue, and opulence of a legendary city during its heyday-before the Castro dictatorship obliterated it. Travel back in time to a bygone era, where glamour, elegance, and class once ruled. Every so often I receive a nice email from someone in the world who's stumbled across The Handsomest Man in Cuba  either on Amazon, in a local library or on a friend's bookshelf. They've usually enjoyed it (except for this reader ) and in some cases, have taken it to Cuba with them, visited the many Cubans I listed in my book, and in one case,  actually hunted down the Handsomest Man . Today's email was from Eric in San Francisco who just happened to be looking at Cuba and Bike Fridays and apparently couldn't believe his luck on finding a book that married the two together: Hi Lynette. Just read The Hand

At Westville Cafe, NYC, Sep 2011 Ten Years After the Fact Dept:  I was delighted to meet Aussie ESPN Sports commentator and all-round creative guy Thai Neave ( Thai Neave Photography ) who brought his old, tattered Random House copy (circa 2003) of my book to brunch - and loaned me his GoPro helmet cam to try out in my upcoming Peru trip. Apparently Thai was inspired to make his own trip to Cuba as a result of reading my book! Here's Thai in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNlA7L_07Yo

A snippet from my Legend in Own Lunchtime files ... THERE I stood, having just exited Eastern Mountain Sports, SOHO after my weekly shift, when a couple on two Brompton folding bikes beckoned me in the darkness. "You're the girl who wrote the book about Cuba," said the gent who identified himself as Pete DeJong of Greenwich, Sydney. "I really enjoyed it." Now that's no small praise from an actuarial professor! "He's really picky about what he reads, so consider it a compliment," chimed in Pete's partner, artist  Dana Dion (check out her cool abstract expressionist art). "It was recommended by a friend of ours, the editor of the Weekend Australian." Holy helmet, I better get cracking and write another one ... It's a fleeting but flattering experience to be recognized by total strangers, especially when they're visiting from other side of the planet. Apparently it was my "Asian face and Bike Friday" t

  The cool turquoise and sand colorway flyovers of Albuquerque I've just spend an intense week in Albuquerque jam-packed with stuff centered around the fine work of the LAB (League of American Bicyclists) - and in 100+ degree heat...    ... surrounded by Adobe, the concrete, not the software kind:   Learned how to ride a bike at the LAB Traffic Skills 101 course and LCI (League Certified Instructor) Seminar:   Yikes! Preston Tyree tries to teach me the life-saving Instant (Counter) Turn Watch a movie explaining this Proving to ourselves that a bike can lean right over in the Instant Turn and still have traction Because if I'd studied this course earlier and learned the mantra: BICYCLISTS FARE BEST WHEN THEY ACT AND ARE TREATED AS DRIVERS OF VEHICLES ... I would not have been doored the week before in NYC:   Thursday: Ride and cocktail reception, featuring a ceremonial guard (is that what you call it?), mariachi band and exhibiting the Giant Halfway folder donated f

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of my maiden voyage to Cuba I've created a ...   Handsomest Man in Cuba Facebook Fan Page And what better way to kick it off than with this utterly stunning photo essay by photographer/editor Carlo Alcos of popular travel writing site matadornetwork.com, who read my book, bought a Bike Friday, and did his own sojourn in 2010. His dramatic shots far surpass my Kodak happysnaps circa 2000. Take a look for yourself ... more Cuba news http://www.galfromdownunder.com/cuba/blog CAMERAS Carlo uses (and you're GONNA wanna know): "A Canon 40D... my two lenses are the Canon EF-S 10-22mm and the Canon EF-S 18-200mm." Rats! big 'ones. I guess I'm gonna have to grow up ... Carlo Alcos : CUBA PHOTO ESSAY 2010 published by  matadornetwork.com My wife and I were sitting on the steps of the Capitolio when I said, "is that...is he...no, can't be." But it was. 10 years after Lynette's excursion in Cuba and here he sti

I got an interesting letter from someone today: Hi, Seeing that the Cubans are so poor and that dear old man has worked so hard everyday did you, will you or have you given him any money for using his picture?I was back to Cuba this past March and gave him a picture I took of HIM!!! I wonder what he would do if he saw himself on your book? I'm thinking there is something wrong with this ... Sandra It's a reasonable question: should I give the man on the cover of my book money? More to the point - just how much? This reader feels I am somehow taking advantage of this man - profiting from by having his face on my book. Here's my reply: Thanks for writing. I appreciate your thinking on this - though you're making a baseline assumption that he is poorer than me. In many ways, he's probably better off. He charges $1 for 2 little photos he processes in that bucket in a prime tourist location. He makes more money in a day than many Cubans do in a month. He'

6 years after my Cuba book was published, I still get nice emails from people who've found it in a library, on a shelf in a backpacker's hostel in Nepal (thanks Sarad),  or got it for 99 cent plus $10 shipping on Amazon. It's technically only published in the USA, Canada, Australia, NZ and now Germany, but has found its way around the globe. It's even in Iraq ... Here's are some from this week: Hi Lynette, We've never met; I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your Cuba book!I finished it last eve, in preparation for a 3-month trip there next month, & I could barely put it down!  I loved your great honesty, modesty, insights, philosophy, humor, descriptions, etc (& this was the first book I've finished in 10-20+yrs)! If you're ever in the Phoenix area you're welcome to stay in my guest bedroom. Best wishes! Dave Foster, AZ Lynette, I have to agree with Peter Sutherland about the reviews of your book. I did have to put it down whe

Since my book The Handsomest Man in Cuba was first published in 2003, several people have gone over and used it to track down some of the people I met and stayed with. You can read about some of those encounters in this set of blog posts . But I fell out of my saddle when Ken Lyneham from downunder actually went out of his way to locate the Handsomest Man himself. He's not the photographer on the cover (who could well be taking a photo of the Handsomest Man, or maybe Señor Hassleblad is just handsome inside) - but the hunk I met at the only fancy hotel I stayed in. And let me get the record straight - I shook his hand and that was it. So many people have written saying ... didja ... ? Puh-lese. Allow me to read you the closing line in that paragraph of daydreaming: "I let go of his hand." Yes, fully clothed and standing either side of a chicken wire gate we were, when we stopped shaking hands. Get it? More thrillingly, Ken tracked down Lolita - the most beautifu

UPDATE! Translation at the end of this post ... I've just received a couple of reviews for the German edition of the Handsomest Man in Cuba - re-titled Cuba Particular by the folks at Piper-Verlag/National Geographic Adventure Press. Here they are: Review 1 - Globetrotter Review 1 - a random online review See translations at the bottom of this post ... If you can read German, be my guest and post a comment below telling us all what they say! Although I studied German for 4 years at school, the only words I know are "Lebkuchen" - a heavenly gingerbread cake-cookie dipped in a thin layer of dark chocolate, and only sold around Weinachten (Christmas), and "Sie antwortet, das fussball ihr langweilig ist." which means "she replied that she found football boring." A German friend in New York mentioned that the translation sounded a little strange, so I asked the publishers to reassure me otherwise. Here's what they replied: Dear Lynette Chiang, As your