Books I read in between gigs

Marcus Villanueva

@marcusv_rolls20

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Twelve books that lasted me through back-to-back shifts at the Port, rush hour on the 836, and enough cafecitos to float a barge. No particular order... these are just what's in rotation on the corner table next to the dice when nobody's throwing yet.

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The list

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Books I read in between gigs — 10 items
Name	Comment	Title	Author	Genre	Where I got it	Pairs well with
1Dreaming in Cuban	Three generations of a family split by the Florida Straits. Reads like a manifest with no clean export... everything's in transit, nobody fully arrives.	Dreaming in Cuban	Cristina García	Literary fiction	Books & Books, Coral Gables	A cafecito, obviously
2Trujillo	Heavy cargo. You'll want to break this one into smaller shipments... don't read it all in one dock shift.	The Feast of the Goat	Mario Vargas Llosa	Historical fiction	Books & Books, Coral Gables	A long night shift
3Miami	Didion clocks this city like a customs inspector who's seen every kind of contraband. Still holds up.	Miami	Joan Didion	Nonfiction	Books & Books, Coconut Grove	A slow Sunday at the port
4City of the Dead	Detective novel set across the water, but it reads like half my container manifests... nothing's ever where the paperwork says it is.	Havana Bay	Martin Cruz Smith	Crime fiction	Downtown Book Center	A dice game that's going nowhere fast
5Train to Havana	Not about Miami at all, but I read it on a layover and it stuck. Sometimes the best books just happen to you.	Train to Trieste	Domenica Ruta	Literary fiction	Books & Books, Coral Gables	A cafecito and a slow afternoon
6Sweetness	Brutal and gorgeous in equal measure. Took me three sittings... some freight you just have to carry slow.	Before Night Falls	Reinaldo Arenas	Memoir	Books & Books, Coral Gables	Strong coffee, no sugar
7The Yacoubian	An apartment building as a whole shipping manifest of a society. Every tenant's a different line item.	The Yacoubian Building	Alaa Al Aswany	Literary fiction	Books & Books, Coral Gables	A crowded waiting room
8Season of the Swamp	Short, strange, and about a man stuck in transit limbo. I felt personally seen.	Season of the Swamp	Yuri Herrera	Historical fiction	Books & Books, Coral Gables	A short ferry ride
9The Brief Wondrous Life	Footnotes on top of footnotes, like a bill of lading nobody double checked. Still one of my favorites.	The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao	Junot Díaz	Literary fiction	Downtown Book Center	A dice game with higher stakes than usual
10Netherland	Cricket in New York, immigrants trying to find footing. Nothing to do with Miami, everything to do with here.	Netherland	Joseph O'Neill	Literary fiction	Books & Books, Coconut Grove	A long commute