So I was over at the High Plains library here in Greeley the other day (a fairly regular occurance) and I was perusing their latest in new selections. I am always on the prowl for a good tropical book as you know, when I came across “Beautiful Maria of My Soul” by Oscar Hijuelos. I had no idea this was a sequel to his Pulitzer Prize winning “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love” (which I hadn’t read or known anything about -maybe because I was 9 when it came out and his stories are a little, shall we say, adult in nature).

Anyway, I get all the way through the novel and fall in love with the style and story and find out that this is, indeed, the second telling of the same story, but told from Maria’s perspective instead of the Castillo brothers. It happens so often for me that I fall in love with the characters, setting and story of novels that by the end of the book I just want more…and this one has more, even if I do read it in a different order.

So today I went back to the library to pick up “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love”… AND I also picked up the movie “The Mambo Kings” (starring Antonio Banderas) in old school VHS format (we’ll have to dust off the old VCR). I guess I have some reading to do and Britton and I have a movie for a chilly evening this week. Yay. Here’s a clip from the movie:

Have you seen the movie or read the books?