HOTEL BABYLON: Inside the Extravagance and Mayhem of a Luxury Five-Star Hotel

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). (Dec. 7)