The Whirl

A sexy and witty travel memoir about men, music and misadventures.

London-based journalist and music critic Jane Cornwell has always thrown herself head and heart first - along with everything else - into relationships. A fascination for other cultures, and the music and men of other cultures, has resulted in adventures as audacious and comic as they are enlightening and erotic.

Travelling the world in search of love, great music and good stories, Cornwell collects relationships the way the rest of us pick up souvenir tea towels or snow domes. She writes of the young Greek bartender on Skyros during the island’s bacchanalian goat festival; the Jamaican gangster who got her stoned on a beach cliff top in Negril; the Congolese ex-con in Paris who wooed her with perfume and lingerie; the young Afro-Cuban dancer in Santiago de Cuba who persuaded her to buy him jeans, trainers and a mobile phone; her nearly romp with a security guard in a Colombian love hotel, and many, many more…

This is also one woman’s journey through music. From acid-house raves in London to salsa in Cuba, from reggae to pan pipes, Sufi trance to Womad, it’s a tribute to music’s power to heal, inspire and transport. It’s a look at rituals and subcultures: Afro-Cuban Santeria. The whirling dervishes of Turkey. Congolese sapeurs in Paris. The New Age scene in Los Angeles. Stand-up comedy. Internet dating.

A fearless and funny quest for love, connection and a faithful man who can dance, The Whirl is a truly sexy memoir for the adventurer in all of us.