Here are 69 books that Hotel Splendide fans have personally recommended if you like
Hotel Splendide.
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I’m a sociologist, and I study how technology shapes and is shaped by people. I love my job because I am endlessly fascinated by why people do the things they do, and how our cultures, traditions, and knowledge affect how we interact with technology in our daily lives. I picked these books because they all tell fascinating stories about how different communities of people have designed, used, or been affected by technological tools.
My copy of this book has so many dog-eared pages and “!”s scrawled in the margins that it’s almost ridiculous. This is the story of how, in the 1960s, New York City and the RAND Corporation used algorithmic modeling to decide where to locate fire stations in the city. It was pretty much a disaster: because of the choices the modelers made about what to measure and how to measure it, they ended up cutting services to many of the poorest neighborhoods in NYC. Joe Flood is a journalist, and it shows—this book is stunning in how it combines the stories of human beings with crystal-clear accounts of the technical decisions made by the computing “whiz kids.”
New York City, 1968. The RAND Corporation had presented an alluring proposal to a city on the brink of economic collapse: Using RAND's computer models, which had been successfully implemented in high-level military operations, the city could save millions of dollars by establishing more efficient public services. The RAND boys were the best and brightest, and bore all the sheen of modern American success. New York City, on the other hand, seemed old-fashioned, insular, and corrupt-and the new mayor was eager for outside help, especially something as innovative and infallible as "computer modeling." A deal was struck: RAND would begin…
My first books were little Golden Books. I loved reading those stories of the sleepy little puppy and the engine that could. I moved on from there to all kinds of books and I remain a very happy reader. I have channeled my love for reading to a love of writing. My writing career started with a focus on journalism and writing for magazines, newspapers, and radio. About 18 years ago I began writing romance novels. I read all kinds of different genre but I thoroughly enjoy following the expanding relationships that make up the core element of all romances. That’s the thing about romance novels. There’s something for everyone.
If you like small town settings with big old houses and hints of a ghost, intrigue, and simmering romance, you’ll love Storms of the Heart.
The story’s female main character, Emerson Lane, finds herself right in the middle of a raging thunderstorm at night on her way to her Uncle Wayne’s house in Twin Creeks, where she lived when her parents died in a car crash. She’s on a mission to reconnect with her uncle after leaving abruptly years ago to live in New York City. Trouble is waiting for her in the name of Sheriff Max Lomax, who she left behind.
Max has his own problems, but he is secretly but begrudgingly thrilled to see her, but questions whether this time she’ll stay. I liked the interesting characters in this story and the pleasant descriptions of Emerson’s hometown. The writing was so nice it felt like I could just…
As an economics professor, I’ve spent the past twenty years researching why cities build upward. Though I mostly look at cities through the lens of statistics and data, every building has a personal and dramatic story that exists behind the numbers. And no matter where you go in the world, great cities with their towering skyscrapers all owe a debt to New York—every city wants its own version of the Empire State Building to signal its economic might. New York is the world’s metropolis. As the (now cliché) song line goes, “If I can make there, I’ll make it anywhere,” is a true today as a century ago.
When I walk through the streets of Manhattan, I’m constantly awed by the variety and density of its buildings. I wonder how such a city could have ever been built. New cities today lack the soul and character. But when you look at why these buildings exist, you see that they are there for a more mundane purpose: as shelter. The Garment District, for example, was created to house massive sweatshops to clothe America. Gotham’s apartment towers enclose the beds on which residents sleep.
Many of these structures were built by a group of family-run development companies. The founders of these enterprises invariably began as immigrants trying to hustle their way up the economic ladder. They started as teenagers working in the sweatshops or hawking newspapers and, bit by bit, erected their own real estate empires. Tom Schactman’s book tells how entrepreneurial spirit, along with New York’s rapid economic growth,…
A portrait of Manhattan real estate and of the multimillionaires who are its masters, describing a world of high risks and huge rewards. Skyscrapers embody the romance of our times. The inspired gamblers who built the structures that transformed not only Manhattan but also the world took great risks. Some of the most colourful failed, while others founded family dynasties among the wealthiest in America, from the Astors and Rockefellers to the Roses and Trumps. From penniless Russian Jewish immigrants to society patricians, from penthouses to tenements, real estate and its manipulations - the buildings, the strategies, even the disasters…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I fell in love with understanding cities toward the end of my college studies. It was the late 1960s and urban issues were foremost in the nation’s consciousness. The times were difficult for cities and many of the problems, seemingly intractable. That drew me to graduate work in urban studies and afterward, teaching about real estate development and finance. My work on public/private partnerships and the political economy of city building has drawn a wide audience. In explaining how cities are built and redeveloped, my goal has been to de-mystify the politics and planning process surrounding large-scale development projects and how they impact the physical fabric of cities.
It’s near impossible not to fall for the lure of urban history when a skilled writer brings to light compelling stories of the men (atlas no women in this book) who transformed New York into an economic powerhouse, the capital of capitalism, in the late 19th century.
Their names are familiar but not so their complete stories: J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, Samuel Gompers, Theodore Roosevelt. The writing is so good, it’s hard to put the book down.
Describes the emergence of post-Civil War New York City, as it evolved from a port city to metropolis via the birth of capitalism, and how such moguls as Rockefeller, Carnegie, and J. P. Morgan helped define the foundation of twentieth-century financial institutions. By the author of Fiorello H. LaGuardia and the Making of Modern New York.
I moved to New York when I was 15 and fell in love with the city. I was starting high school then, and arriving in Manhattan felt like the world opened up to me. Suddenly, I could ride the subway anywhere I wanted, see the best theater in the world, and feel as if anything was possible. The female journey has also been a topic I have long been fascinated by, and when I began my journalism career and became a wife and mother, the need to explore those dynamics grew ever more pressing. I recommend these books because they combine my two favorite topics—New York and women’s history.
This book is a fictionalized story of one of the most sought-after artists' models in New York City in the early decades of the twentieth century and of her relationship with the Frick family, whose paintings and sculptures make up one of America’s most famous art collections.
I love Fiona Davis’ writing, which immediately pulls the reader in, and I can’t get enough of this tale of female strength and grit and its peek inside the wondrous world of fine art.
Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue, returns with a tantalizing novel about the secrets, betrayal, and murder within one of New York City's most impressive Gilded Age mansions.
Eight months since losing her mother in the Spanish flu outbreak of 1919, twenty-one-year-old Lillian Carter's life has completely fallen apart. For the past six years, under the moniker Angelica, Lillian was one of the most sought-after artists' models in New York City, with statues based on her figure gracing landmarks from the Plaza Hotel to the Brooklyn Bridge. But…
Where Are Your Boys is the book I always wanted to write. Watching emo bands like My Chemical Romance and Paramore soar from suburbs to stardom during my high school years inspired me to take writing seriously, that a kid like me growing up in New Jersey with few connections to the media industry could find a backdoor in, because those bands did, too. With its dense population, adjacency to New York City, and a multitude of record stores and all-ages shows, New Jersey was the setting for much of emo's 2000s boom and the home of My Chemical Romance and many other important bands.
Like nothing I'd ever read before. An incredible fusing of the familiar and the fantastic. Much of it takes place in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, during the 2010s, on the same subways and sidewalks I frequented. I interviewed author Geoff Rickly extensively for my book, as his band Thursday is central to its plot. I thought I knew Geoff's story pretty well. Turns out, I had no idea.
This book is surrealist, and it's autofiction. I could tell you how great it is by stressing you don't need to know anything about Geoff or his band to be spellbound by it. But I think the best praise I could give is how it made me consider all the extraordinary things that are happening around me all the time
Geoff Rickly’s debut novel Someone Who Isn’t Me is a feverish journey through the psyche of someone who no longer recognizes himself. When Geoff hears that a drug called ibogaine might be able to save him from his heroin addiction, he goes to a clinic in Mexico to confront the darkest and most destructive versions of himself. In this modern reimagining of the Divine Comedy, survival lurks in the darkest corners of Geoff’s brain, asking, will he make it? Can anyone?
When Lara was four years old, her father moved from Rochester, New York, to Anchorage, Alaska, a distance of over 4,000 miles. She spent her childhood chasing after him, flying a quarter of the way around the world to tug at the hem of his jacket.
With a name like Susan Wands, it was inevitable that I would be drawn to the occult and to the world of tarot cards. In high school, I was drawn to a set of tarot cards, not knowing that this deck, the Ryde Waite deck, was illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. Pamela was the co-creator of the world’s best-selling tarot deck, and I became obsessed with her and her life story. I have written a historical fantasy series, the Arcana Oracle Series, based on Pamela’s life and lectured worldwide on the Golden Dawn, Tarot, and Magical Women.
I was intrigued by the magical abilities in the “Hands” of each one of the three protagonists in this book. Tamara uses her hands for tarot readings to tell people’s futures, while Phyllis’s hands have a super-power strength for knife-throwing, and Dev has “Saint’s Hands” have a sort of spidey-sense, helping his work as a police spy.
I was intrigued by Tamara’s tarot readings as part of this crime story, with the weaving in of black people’s stories of trauma, the double-edged sword of passing for white, and Juju assassins. This alternate history is a nebula of magic, criminals, and an exploration of how love heals people.
This book was the 2021 Winner of the World Fantasy Award. It was an unexpected winner, but I can see how Johnson’s gritty writing pulled people in. Trigger warning: if you have nerves about reading about knives as weapons, you may want to…
The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad in this timely and unsettling novel, set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City, where an assassin tries to fight her fate at the dawn of World War II.
Amid the whir of city life, a young woman from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she's hired to use her knives to strike fear among its most dangerous denizens.
Ten years later, Phyllis LeBlanc has given up everything - not just her own past, and Dev, the man…
I have spent my professional career attempting to reform the justice system and create safer communities. For nearly two decades, I served as the executive director of the Center for Court Innovation (now the Center for Justice Innovation). Now, I co-edit a policy journal called Vital City that attempts to spark new thinking about how to achieve public safety. Over the years, I have worked with numerous city, state, and federal officials. I have seen that most of the people working within government are trying their best in difficult circumstances. I have also seen that it is enormously difficult to change government systems and solve complicated social problems.
Like many New Yorkers, I am fascinated by the history of the city.
The Cost of Good Intentionsdetails the run-up to a crucial turning point for the city: the fiscal crisis of 1975.
Written by a high-ranking city official after the fact, the book is an insightful analysis of how local government, particularly under Mayor John Lindsay, attempted to respond to a range of significant challenges, including the civil right movement, rising crime, and changing economic conditions.
Despite the best of intentions, the administration’s reach ended up exceeding its grasp, laying the groundwork not only for the fiscal crisis and for an era of declining public trust in government.
This book is about public policy making in New York during the zenith of the great liberal experiment, from 1960, Mayor Robert Wagner's third term, through John V. Lindsay, Abraham Beame, and, finally, to Edward Koch and the inevitable return of fiscal conservatism.
The bigger they come the harder they fall. When New York City fell and its intricate, often exotic, budget gimmickry came unstuck, they foundations of every other large city in America shook. If we are not to relive this history it is important to learn the lessons taught so cogently and entertainingly in this book.
In 2006, I told a friend I wanted to write a book about grieving the death of a friend. Despite the fact that I’d never written a book before, she gave me her enthusiastic approval. Six months later she was dead. She inspired me to turn that book idea into a series of little books: the Friend Grief series. Just as I was finishing the last one, I began work on a full-length book that took me back to my work in the early days of AIDS. When COVID began, I returned to writing about friend grief. And I lost over a dozen friends while I wrote the book.
One of the many wistful and beautiful photos in this book caught my eye in an exhibit at the New York Historical Society in 2021.
Her photography, and the attendant essays, evoke not only the isolation of quarantine, but the ways we rediscovered the desire for human connection. What could be easier than meeting a friend, careful to stay 6’ apart? Or sadder?
In April 2020, when New York was in lockdown and the epicentre of the pandemic, Renate Aller created the project side walk. She hosted friends and neighbors on her sidewalk or visited them in their street, her camera in self timer mode, recording these masked encounters at a safe 6 feet distance. With voices muted by masks we learn to communicate with our eyes and body language, finding our bearings in a new emotional landscape. These sidewalk visits created a deep sense of community where community had been forced apart. This project is in the spirit of Rainer Maria Rilke:…
Brother. Do. You. Love. Me. is a true story of brotherly love overcoming all. Reuben, who has Down's syndrome, was trapped in a care home during the pandemic, spiralling deeper into a non-verbal depression. From isolation and in desperation, he sent his older brother Manni a text, "brother. do. you.…
I’ve written fourteen historical novels now and most of them include real historical characters. I particularly like writing about women I feel have been misjudged or ignored by historians, and trying to reassess them in the modern age. Fiction allows me to imagine what they were thinking and feeling as they lived through dramatic, life-changing experiences, giving more insight than facts alone could do. Sitting at my desk in the morning and pretending to be someone else is a strange way to earn a living but it’s terrific fun!
While I was writing my novel about Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, I heard that Renée Rosen was writing about Estée Lauder and couldn’t wait to read it.
She perfectly captures the pushy, driven, hilarious character of Estée, who was known for accosting strangers in the street to tell them they were wearing the wrong shade of lipstick for their skin tone. Renée Rosen is one of the authors whose books I always preorder: I love everything she writes.
It’s 1938, and a young woman selling face cream out of a New York City beauty parlor is determined to prove she can have it all. Her name is Estée Lauder, and she’s about to take the world by storm, in this dazzling new novel from the USA Today bestselling author of The Social Graces and Park Avenue Summer.
In New York City, you can disappear into the crowd. At least that’s what Gloria Downing desperately hopes as she tries to reinvent herself after a devastating family scandal. She’s ready for a total life makeover and a friend she can…
