Bogormen

Title: A Gentleman in Moscow
Author: Amor Towles
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 482
Date read: February, 2018

On 21 June 1922 Count Alexander Rostov - recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt - is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol.

But instead of being taken to his usual suite, he is led to an attic room with a window the size of a chessboard. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely.

While Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval, the Count, stripped of the trappings that defined his life, is forced to question what makes us who we are. And with the assistance of a glamorous actress, a cantankerous chef and a very serious child, Rostov unexpectedly discovers a new understanding of both pleasure and purpose.


What a brilliant book! Not your usual "comfort read", but I'd still characterize it as such. With very few exceptions, I loved all of the characters, finding them charming or interesting or both! It's a fun "Robinson Crusoe"-type book about a man who has to learn how to make a single hotel his entire life. I enjoyed reading how he managed to define a place for himself, and how he made friends - and even family - among the employees and guests of the hotel.

Unlike any book I've ever read before, but I greatly enjoyed it.

Title: Heads in Beds
Author: Jacob Tomsky
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 320
Date read: July, 2014

Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and a singular lack of career direction, he became a valet parker for a large luxury hotel in New Orleans. Yet, rising fast through the ranks, he ended up working in "hospitality" for more than a decade, doing everything from supervising the housekeeping department to manning the front desk at an upscale Manhattan hotel. He's checked you in, checked you out, separated your white panties from the white bed sheets, parked your car, tasted your room-service meals, cleaned your toilet, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&Ms out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. In Heads in Beds he pulls back the curtain to expose the crazy and compelling reality of a multi-billion-dollar industry we think we know.

I always love these "behind the scenes" memoirs, and this was no different. I found it interesting to learn more about the internal workings of hotels, and am somehow not surprised that there's so much hustling going on.

It did have a bunch of trips for weary travelers - some more kosher than others though.