1. Cuba (Lonely Planet)

Lonely Planet is my favourite series with the right amount of detail, well written and accurate.

2. Havana City Guide (Lonely Planet)

If you are going to spend a lot of time in Havana, this is better than the Cuba book. Lonely Planet is my favourite series with the right amount of detail, well written and accurate.

3. Cuba (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

I like DK Eyewitness Travel Guides for their many photographs, and their 3-D views of the key attractions.

4. Top 10 Cuba (DK Eyewitness Travel)

I like the Top 10 DK Eyewitness Travel books for helping me prioritize the many possible sights to see.

5. Fodor's Exploring Cuba

I like Fodor's Exploring Travel Guides for their photographs and their ratings of each sight - they help me prioritize the many possible things to see.

1. Travelers Tales Cuba

Editor Tom Miller. Published 2001. Another in the Travelers series of travel anthologies, this time capturing the experience of Cuba in 38 stories by people like Tom Miller, Cristina García, Pico Iyer, and James Michener. The book is organized into five sections: Essence of Cuba, Some Things to Do, Going Your Own Way, In the Shadows, and The Last Word.

I am a fan of the Travelers Tales series and find that they provide more memorable ideas about a place than just reading a guide book.

2. Museo Nacional De Bellas Artes, La Habana, Cuba: Coleccion De Arte Cubano

by Roberto Cobas Amate. Published 2001. The highlights of the Cuban collection of paintings in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Havana, Cuba. Featured artists include Tomás Sánchez, Victor Manuel Garcia, Wilfredo Lam, Amelia Pelaez, Raul Martinez, Jorge Arche, Rafael Blanco, Jose A Bencomo Mena, Alberto Jorge Carol, Ruben Torres Llorca, Eduardo Abela, and Antonio Gattorno.

This out-of-print book allows me to appreciate and study Cuban art at leisue at home. I would have appreciated the museum even more if I had this book before I went.

1. The Motorcycle Diaries

Directed by Walter Salles. Released 2004. 126 minutes. In Spanish. Starring Gael García Bernal as Ernesto "Fuser" Guevara de la Serna and Rodrigo de la Serna as Alberto "Mial" Granado. This biographical film is about the journey and written memoir of the 23-year-old Ernesto Guevara, who would years later become internationally known as the iconic Marxist revolutionary "Che" Guevara.

The film recounts the 1952 journey, initially by motorcycle, across South America by Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado. As the adventure unfolds, Guevara discovers himself transformed by his observations of the life of the impoverished indigenous peasantry. The road presents Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granado a genuine picture of the Latin American identity. Through the characters they encounter on the road, Guevara and Granado learn the injustices the impoverished face and are exposed to people they would have never encountered in their hometown. The trip serves to expose a Latin American identity as well as explore the identity of one of its most memorable revolutionaries.

In Peru, they volunteer for three weeks at the San Pablo leper colony. There, Guevara sees both physically and metaphorically the division of society between the toiling masses and the ruling class (the staff live on the north side of a river, separated from the lepers living on the south). Guevara also refuses to wear rubber gloves during his visit choosing instead to shake bare hands with startled leper inmates.

Captivating and well acted. This film gives you an understanding of how Che Guevara was created.

2. Our Man In Havana

Directed by Carol Reed. Released 1959. 111 minutes. Filmed on location in Havana. Starring Alec Guinness as Jim Wormold, Burl Ives as Dr. Hasselbacher, Maureen O'Hara as Beatrice Severn, Ernie Kovacs as Capt. Segura, and Noel Coward as Hawthorne. Based on the book by Graham Greene.

Jim Wormold is an expatriate Englishman living in pre-revolutionary Havana with his teenage daughter Milly. He owns a vacuum cleaner shop but isn't very successful so he accepts an offer from Hawthorne of the British Secret Service to recruit a network of agents in Cuba. Wormold hasn't got a clue where to start but when his friend Dr. Hasselbacher suggests that the best secrets are known to no one, he decides to manufacture a list of agents and provides fictional tales for the benefit of his masters in London. He is soon seen as the best agent in the Western Hemisphere but it all begins to unravel when the local police decode his cables and start rounding up his "network" and he learns that he is the target of a group out to kill him.

Fidel Castro’s incoming revolutionary Government granted permission to shoot this movie on location in Havana. Wormold makes up a story of secret military constructions in Cuba, that actually became true in Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

I liked this movie as a timepiece to Havana in the late 1950s. One aspect of pre-Castro life has not changed — the famous floor show at the open-air Tropicana night-club, where Wormold helped his daughter celebrate her birthday. I really liked the cast, perfect for their parts.

3. Audioslave: Live in Cuba

Directed by Lawrence Jordan. Released 2005. 107 minutes. Audioslave became the first American rock band to perform in Cuba since the United States placed the country under an embargo. This documentary shows the band's performance on May 6, 2005 before 60,000-plus fans at Havana's Anti Imperialist Plaza. The bonus is 37 minutes and shows the band's 3-day trip around Havana.

The bonus documentary follows the Audioslave band members as they tour around Havana visiting the Plaza de la Catedral, the Malecon with guitarist Tom Morello jamming with some local musicians, the Castillo el Morro with bassist Tim Commerford riding his mountain bike all over the walls, John Lennon Parque, the Hotel Nacional, the Plaza de la Revolución with the Memorial Jose Marti and the Ministerio del Interior with its huge mural of Che Guevara. They also visit the Nacional Music Institute where Tim Commerford is blown away by this amazing upright bass player.

The concert is excellent. The Cuban tourist portion is surprisingly insightful, portraying a vivid picture of Cubans, and especially their love of music.