2 Books About Hotel Life
By Leah Greenblatt
Dear Readers,
Perhaps you are familiar with this rabbit hole: I went online recently to make what should have been a simple booking for a short trip and promptly lost several hours of my life (without, somehow, finding an actual hotel).
But what a window into humanity! Is there a better form of flash fiction than the one-star reviews on popular travel sites? These screeds have everything: hauntings, bedbugs, moral injury.
Even the dullest airport Marriott, though — the nubbly carpet, the sad little cups — seems to exist somewhere outside of everyday life. That's what I like about books set amid temporary lodgings, too; like maritime law or that free zone in Denmark, they allow for other codes.
Consider this week's newsletter picks, touched with mayhem and strange currencies. For the price of a good stoop sale or a library card, you can check out any time you like and you can, in fact, leave. I hope you'll read on anyway.
—Leah
'Hotel Splendide,' by Ludwig Bemelmans
Nonfiction, 1941
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Doctor Who season two is available now on Disney+.
