A POW meets other survivors of World War I in a Polish hotel in this acclaimed classic novel by the author of The Radetzky March. Still bearing the scars from gulag experiences, a freed POW traverses Russia to arrive at the Polish town of Lodz. In its massive Hotel Savoy, he meets a surreal cast of characters, each eagerly awaiting the return from America of a rich man named Bloomfield. Like Europe itself at the time, the hotel is the stage upon which characters follow fate to its tragic destination . . . Praise for Hotel Savoy “Superb Roth: witty, elegant, invariably honing in on the point where history trickles down to the level of the individual character and turns into fate.” —The Nation “Roth’s considerable gift lay in sketching myriad personal convulsions in that time of conflagration.” —Publishers Weekly
The captivating story of the famed Savoy Hotel’s founders, told through three generations—and one hundred years—of glamour and high society. For the gondoliers-themed birthday dinner, the hotel obligingly flooded the courtyard to conjure the Grand Canal of Venice. Dinner was served on a silk-lined floating gondola, real swans were swimming in the water, and as a final flourish, a baby elephant borrowed from London Zoo pulled a five-foot high birthday cake. In three generations, the D'Oyly Carte family and London's Savoy Hotel pioneered the idea of the luxury hotel and the modern theater, propelled Gilbert and Sullivan to lasting stardom, made Oscar Wilde a transatlantic celebrity, inspired a P. G. Wodehouse series, and popularized early jazz, electric lights, and Art Deco. Following the history of the iconic Savoy Hotel through three generations of the D'Oyly Carte family, The Secret Life of the Savoy brings to life the extraordinary cultural legacy of the most famous hotel in the world.
Step into the glamorous world of the Savoy Hotel's legendary American Bar with The Savoy Cocktail Book, a classic collection of cocktail recipes that has stood the test of time. Originally published in 1930, this iconic book by Harry Craddock features an extensive array of beloved drinks, from timeless classics to forgotten gems. With its rich history and enduring influence, The Savoy Cocktail Book remains an essential guide for cocktail enthusiasts, professional bartenders, and anyone looking to elevate their mixology skills. This book contains hundreds of recipes for ... Cocktails Prepared Cocktails for Bottling Non-Alcoholic Cocktails Cocktails Suitable for a Prohibition Country Sours Toddies Flips Egg Noggs Collins Slings Shrubs Sangarees Highballs Fizzes Coolers Rickeys Daisies Fixes Juleps Smashes Cobblers Frappé Punch Prepared Punch for Bottling Cups The Lucky Hour of Great Wines The Wines of Bordeaux Champagne Burgundy Hocks (Rhine Wines), Steiweins & Moselles Port Sherry
An atmospheric, entertaining new mystery series introducing a plucky Canadian heroine and set in the world’s most famous hotel. It’s 1968. London is in full swing and the Savoy Hotel is at the height of its legendary glitz and glamour, welcoming the rich, famous and aristocratic into its rarified world of perfection. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are squabbling in the American Bar while Noël Coward drinks champagne. Royals wait upstairs in luxurious suites for discreet encounters. In short, all is as it should be at the Savoy. If only it weren’t for the dead body in Room 705. Could it be murder at the Savoy? Impossible! Who could have done such a thing? Suspicion falls upon Priscilla Tempest, the quick-witted Canadian head of the Savoy press office who has a penchant for champagne, the wrong sort of men—and trouble. When it is discovered that Priscilla had been with the deceased—a notorious international arms dealer—the night before he was found dead, she is questioned by Scotland Yard Inspector Robert “Charger” Lightfoot and is suddenly under the unforgiving eye of her boss, the Savoy’s straitlaced general manager, Clive Banville. Her job on the line, her life in danger, Priscilla must elude the police and the general manager’s duplicitous wife, ward off the amorous advances of a famous drunken actor, and discover whether that really was a member of the royal family seen leaving the victim’s suite shortly before his body was discovered. Death at the Savoy is an intoxicating blend of mystery, suspense and humour. And it’s just the beginning!
Jim Eldridge, author of the Museum Mysteries, turns his pen to Wartime London's grandest hotels.September 1940: the height of the Blitz. The Savoy Hotel boasts London's strongest air raid shelter with all the luxury expected from one of the capital's most prestigious hotels. It prompts the arrival of a disgruntled crowd from the East End, demanding they be allowed entry and respite from the endless bombing raids. They are given permission to enter and are stunned by the opulence that greets them. The all-clear sounds the next morning and London comes slowly back to life, but not everyone can dust themselves down and carry on. One of the hotel's guests has been discovered dead, stabbed in the back. Detective Chief Inspector Coburg and Sergeant Lampson are called in and the finger of suspicion falls firmly upon the East Londoners, but not everything is as it seems in these sumptuous surroundings.
The author’s masterpiece, an epic saga of a family and an empire in decline, is “full of psychological penetration and tragic force” (The New Yorker). The Radetzky March, Joseph Roth’s classic novel of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, follows three generations of the privileged von Trotta family as Europe advances inexorably toward World War I. With a breadth and richness that draws comparison to Tolstoy, it encompasses the entire social fabric of Austro-Hungarian society. Shot through with dark humor and tragic irony, The Radetzky March is an unparalleled portrait of a civilization in decline, and as such a universal story for our times. “A masterpiece . . . The totality of Joseph Roth’s work is no less than a tragédie humaine achieved in the techniques of modern fiction. No other contemporary writer, not excepting Thomas Mann, has come close to achieving the wholeness . . . that Lukács cites as our impossible aim.” —Nadine Gordimer
The hotel that I love like a fatherland is situated in one of the great port cities of Europe, and the heavy gold Antiqua letters in which its banal name is spelled out shining across the roofs of the gently banked houses are in my eye metal flags, metal bannerets that instead of fluttering shine out their greeting. In the 1920s and 30s, Joseph Roth travelled extensively in Europe, leading a peripatetic life living in hotels and writing about the towns through which he passed. Incisive, nostalgic, curious and sharply observed - and collected together here for the first time - his pieces paint a picture of a continent racked by change yet clinging to tradition. From the 'compulsive' exercise regime of the Albanian army, the rickety industry of the new oil capital of Galicia, and 'split and scalped' houses of Tirana forced into modernity, to the individual and idiosyncratic characters that Roth encounters in his hotel stays, these tender and quietly dazzling vignettes form a series of literary postcards written from a bygone world, creeping towards world war.
'Utterly absorbing and deeply affecting' – The Guardian As a Spice Girl, TV talent show judge and Broadway star, Mel B a.k.a Scary Spice, has been a global icon since her twenties. But behind the glittering façade of fame, the struggles and pain of this working-class, mixed-race girl from Leeds are laid bare in her critically acclaimed best-selling memoir, Brutally Honest. With deep personal insight, remarkable frankness and trademark Yorkshire humour, the book tells how she went from Girl Power to girl powerless during her ten-year emotionally abusive marriage. Tracing a path through the key moments in her life, she reflects on her childhood, rise to fame and her chilling downward spiral before she finally broke free. In this expanded edition, written with Louise Gannon, Mel brings her story up to date. With her trademark honesty, she tells the unfiltered story of piecing herself back together, dealing with trauma and new heartbreak whilst becoming a champion for survivors of abuse, performing once more with the Spice Girls and receiving her MBE from Prince William.
Now in paperback, the critically acclaimed Ritz and Escoffier. In a tale replete with scandal and opulence, Luke Barr, author of the New York Times bestselling Provence, 1970, transports readers to turn-of-the-century London and Paris to discover how celebrated hotelier César Ritz and famed chef Auguste Escoffier joined forces at the Savoy Hotel to spawn a scandalously modern luxury hotel and restaurant, signaling a new social order and the rise of the middle class. In early August 1889, César Ritz, a Swiss hotelier highly regarded for his exquisite taste, found himself at the Savoy Hotel in London. He had come at the request of Richard D'Oyly Carte, the financier of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic operas, who had modernized theater and was now looking to create the world's best hotel. D'Oyly Carte soon seduced Ritz to move to London with his team, along with Auguste Escoffier, the chef de cuisine known for his elevated, original dishes. The two created a hotel and restaurant like no one had ever experienced, in often mysterious and always extravagant ways, where British high society mingled with American Jews and women. Barr deftly re-creates the thrilling Belle Epoque era just before World War I, when British aristocracy was at its peak, women began dining out unaccompanied by men, and American nouveaux riche and gauche industrialists convened in London to show off their wealth. In their collaboration at the still celebrated Savoy Hotel, the pair welcomed loyal and sometimes salacious clients, such as Oscar Wilde and Sarah Bernhardt; Escoffier created the modern kitchen brigade and codified French cuisine in his seminal Le Guide culinaire, which remains in print today; and Ritz, whose name continues to grace the finest hotels, created the world's first luxury hotel. The pair also ruffled more than a few feathers. Fine dining and luxury travel would never be the same--or more intriguing.
