Hotel Babylon [Paperback]

Imogen Edwards-Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 4, 2005

'Something strange occurs to guests as soon as they check in. Even if in real life they are perfectly well-mannered, decent people with proper balanced relationships, as soon as they spin through the revolving hotel doors the normal rules of behaviour no longer seem to apply.' All of the following is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty. All the anecdotes, the stories, the characters, the situations, the highs, the lows, the scams, the drugs, the misery, the love, the death and the insanity are exactly as was told by Anonymous - someone who has spent his whole career working in hotels at the heart of London's luxury hotel industry. However, for legal reasons, the stories now take place in a fictitious hotel known as Hotel Babylon. More than a decade is compressed into a day. Everything else is as it should be. The rich spend money, the hotel makes money and the chambermaids still fight the bellboys over a two-pound coin. It's just another twenty-four hours in an expensive London hotel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The anonymous author, who now manages an unnamed five-star hotel, has spent the past 15 years working in London's top lodgings. With British journalist Edwards-Jones, the author compresses these years into a 24-hour period (divided into one chapter for every hour) and places the events at a fictitious Hotel Babylon (to protect the guilty who may include the author). The result is an irreverent exposé of the often unimaginable debauchery and dishonesty of the luxury hotel industry. The insider's perspective affords honest assessments of the guests, workers and the hotel itself, revealing that "the scams are endless.... The suppliers do the hotel, the staff do the hotel and the hotel tries to do everyone." The man who can afford a £250 -per-night room but refuses to pay his 850-quid worth of calls to porn lines is despicable, but so is the hotel when it appends corkage fees for bottles never opened to unknowing wedding parties. In addition to including details of the rich and famous (Margaret Thatcher was "a great whiskey drinker"; Madonna complained "about the color of the curtains in her room"), the book shares odd "day-in-the-life of a front-desk receptionist" anecdotes (e.g., a naked lady singing in the lobby, a false fire alarm and the natural death of an old woman who lived at the hotel).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

" 'Informative, disgusting and utterly fascinating' Closer. 'Reading Hotel Babylon is like mainlining Popbitch' Metro."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Corgi (July 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0552151467
• ISBN-13: 978-0552151467
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,664,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly amusing, October 28, 2005

By 

Gigi Fufu "gigi fufu" (Miami) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hotel Babylon (Paperback)

I was given this book from a friend who promised me, that as a frequent traveler, I may never feel the same way about my journeys after reading it. Boy was she right!

The novel moves very quickly and spans a 24 hour period in a five star hotel. Throughout the novel we are offered disturbing glimpses of what actually happens when people use a place as their home away from home. Believe me some of these glimpses are very distrubing!

The novel also demonstrates how hotels make money, how they deal with needy and demanding clients, what happens when they overbook and how they deal with some of the more "delicate situations" which arise.

Very fun and informative!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very funny read, December 28, 2004

By 

KatPanama "katpanama" (Readerville) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hotel Babylon (Paperback)

Terrific plane reading. Facile but entertaining tale of the underbelly of a 5-Star luxury hotel in London. Funny and sometimes outrageous.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great stuff, December 1, 2004

By 

adam "frequent flier" (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hotel Babylon (Paperback)

I really enjoyed this book. As someone who spends a lot of time travelling abroad and staying in five star hotels this is was a real eye-opener. The book is packed with great stories, anecdotes and loads of celebrity gossip and I found it hilarious, entertaining and the prefect thing to take on a long haul flight. I read it one sitting. I couldn't put it down. I liked the 24 hour format and I would recommend to anyone who is at all curious and who has a sense of humour.