What to read to understand hotel life

Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty (2017)

I love novels that are moving without being sentimental, and this one – about a retired Irish couple, Gerry and Stella, who take a trip from Scotland to Amsterdam – is one of my favourites. Understated and intimate, it’s a masterclass in shifting points of view and fine detail. Just take Bernard MacLaverty’s hotel observations, from the bed “made tight as a drum”, to the toilet seat “fractionally lower than at home” so that Gerry “panicked in the last few millimetres of his descent”.

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (1971)

There’s a whiff of Fawlty Towers to the Claremont, a residential hotel on Cromwell Road with “thick carpet”, “pasty celery soup” and a daily framed menu that hangs beside the lift and serves as “chief gathering place” for guests. The days may move slowly for our heroine, Mrs Palfrey – recently widowed and near the end of her life – but the pleasure is all ours. From the delightfully banal setting to the perfectly observed (and wonderfully eccentric) characters, Elizabeth Taylor’s novel of a bygone era is suffused with humour and poignancy. 

You Are Here by David Nicholls (2024)

If it’s sun, sea and sex you’re after, you won’t find much of it in David Nicholls’ thoroughly British, incredibly witty love story that follows two single hikers matchmade on Wainwright’s coast-to-coast walk. Taking place over eight drizzly days, Michael and Marnie’s journey is punctuated with nights at the kind of small English lodgings that are devoid of luxury (at the Trout Inn, toiletries come in sachets, “like pub mayonnaise”) – but by the end of the book I still yearned to don hiking boots and replicate their trip.

All In by Claire Powell is published by Chatto & Windus (£16.99). Order a copy from The Observer Shop for £15.29 (10% off RRP). Delivery charges may apply

Artwork by Frank Newbould for LNER via SSPL/Getty Images