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Travels on the Dance Floor: One Man's Journey to the Heart of Salsa
 
 
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Travels on the Dance Floor: One Man's Journey to the Heart of Salsa (Hardcover)

by Grevel Lindop (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
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Price For All Three: £23.76

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Andre Deutsch Ltd (4 Aug 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0233002367
  • ISBN-13: 978-0233002361
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.6 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 77,613 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #6 in  Books > Children's Books > Hobbies & Interests > Dance
    #58 in  Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Performing Arts > Dance

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  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Product Description

When poet and biographer Grevel Lindop takes up salsa dancing in rainy Manchester, all he has are size 12 feet and excruciating adolescent memories of ballroom dancing lessons. But salsa has a way of getting into your blood. Intense and intimate, sexy and addictive, the adrenalin-pumping Afro-Latin-American dance style soon becomes an obsession. Inspired to learn more, Lindop decides on a solo adventure to find the geographical and cultural roots of salsa.From the streets, bars and dance halls of Cuba, Venezuela and Colombia to those of Panama, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Miami - land of Cuban exiles - he stumbles across a colorful cast of characters and a raft of new tricks. His quest also gives rise to basic confrontations with himself: can a 6'4" white, English poet really dance? And what happens when he does? "Travels on the Dance Floor" is Lindop's vibrant and evocative account of his odyssey, written with wry humour and a poet's eye for color, detail and atmosphere. Funny, passionate and inspiring by turns, it is a book that will be loved by dance addicts and armchair travelers alike.


About the Author

Born in Liverpool, Grevel Lindop was educated at Oxford and taught English Literature at Manchester University, becoming Professor of Romantic Studies before leaving in 2001 to become a writer. His books include six collections of poems - most recently Playing With Fire and Selected Poems - as well as The Opium-Eater: A Life of Thomas De Quincey and A Literary Guide to the Lake District (Lakeland Book of the Year 2005). Married with three children, he lives in Manchester.
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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews
5 star:
 (6)
4 star:    (0)
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 (1)
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 (2)
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Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Salsa as a universal language, 25 Aug 2008
By William Cohen (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)      
I heard this book on Radio 4 and as a keen salsa addict, I immediately got hold of a copy. I'd like to go on a salsa holiday, and this book explained what the 'scene' is like in half-a-dozen Latin American cities

Lindop went on his own. It's really hard to turn up at bars and dance among people you've never met before. But he made contacts and organised enough lessons to get a feel for the places and people. His prose is poetic and rich, I enjoyed reading it in short bursts. There is lots of insight into the great pleasure that salsa gives: the music, the women and the movement. It works as a travelogue, and as a book about dance. You also learn a few things about an Englishman of a certain age.

I'm not sure what someone who had never danced salsa would make of it. Goethe used to say that love poetry had a reinforcing effect. Reading the poetry improved the appreciation of the lovemaking, and lovemaking gave a greater sense of the quality of of the poetry. For salsa addicts, it's very much the effect of this book!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable account of a trip into Salsa's heartlands, 3 Mar 2009
I don't know what some of the people who have posted negative reviews about this book actually want. If they want a dance manual, they should look elsewhere. As a matter of fact, some of the non-Salsa related aspects of the author's trip simply served to make the story more interesting. Similarly, if they want a standard travelogue, again, they should seek out another book. However, this sort of negativity shouldn't come as a surprise, as the Salsa scenes in European countries tend to be fractious and characterised by pecking orders and attitude and I have to reveal my personal distaste for some of the more unappealing aspects of the UK Salsa scene (but that's another story).

I enjoyed the book because it was about one man's trip into Salsa, his desires, motivations, impressions and experiences. By its very nature, this sort of thing is highly subjective. He embarked on a trip where there were unplanned events, distractions and the usual highs and lows and it is this element of the unknown which creates more interest. I warmed to the author and his (to my mind) accurate take on Salsa. I enjoyed his impressions of the places and people and admired his courage in diving into the Salsa scenes in foreign lands where he was a stranger and where occasionally there can be danger for the unwary. I read the book straight through and both learned from and enjoyed it. This story of the author's trip further stoked my interest in Salsa and the Caribbean and Central/South American travel. Recommended.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Delightful, 3 Feb 2009
By Graham Winyard (Winchester, England) - See all my reviews
This is a delightfully unusual book that captures so many dimensions of Latin America in a search for the soul of Salsa. A pleasure to read, either from cover to cover or country by country over time, with many intriguing twists.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetic, energetic, a mans journey to the deep roots of salsa!
In response to the negative review the book is not an instuctional guide to dancing. The author writes well with poetry, prose. I share the experiences with him as a beginner. Read more
Published 14 days ago by R. P. L. Asquith

5.0 out of 5 stars I've booked my ticket!
I like salsa and I found this book as a product link when I bought some salsa cd's. I thought it was a fasciniating tour of the kind of exotic places we seldom get to visit; an... Read more
Published 17 days ago by Tony

5.0 out of 5 stars One for the Salsaholics!!!
I'd just like to say what a wonderful book Travels on the Dancefloor is. My sister gave it to me for my birthday this month and I couldn't put it down. I read it in two days!!! Read more
Published 20 days ago by Ms. K. Sheldon

2.0 out of 5 stars Mixed feelings
Great travel writing is about both the destination and the author, and while Grevel Lindop occasionally brings his destinations to life, I'm not sure he makes an amiable travel... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Simon Rudkin

3.0 out of 5 stars 50:50
I've finished reading the book a few days ago, and really wish I hadn't botthered to pick it up, because I find it really difficult to put something down without finishing it... Read more
Published 9 months ago by A. Quresh

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what it says on the tin
I bought this book having heard the first episode of a Radio 4 serialisation. As a keen salsa dancer for nearly ten years, I was hoping for new insights into one of life's great... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Don

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