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Up in the Old Hotel, and Other Stories Audiobook
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Publisher Description
Saloon keepers, street preachers, gypsies, steel-walking Mohawks, a bearded lady, and a ninety-three-year-old “seafoodetarian” who believes his specialized diet will keep him alive for another two decades are among the people that Joseph Mitchell immortalized in his reportage for the New Yorker and in four books—McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr. Flood, The Bottom of the Harbor, and Joe Gould’s Secret—that are still renowned for their respectful observation, their graveyard humor, and their offhand perfection of style.
These masterpieces (along with several previously uncollected stories) are available in one volume, which presents an indelible collective portrait of an unsuspected New York and its odder citizens—as depicted by one of the great writers of this or any other time.
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“Grover Gardner is amazing here. He creates an intelligent, interested, wry voice for Mitchell that matches his reportorial stance and lets the voices of the many and varied characters who trust and talk to Mitchell take center stage. Gardner evokes, rather than imitates, regional accents when necessary: his Boston is wonderful, his Southern ditto, and his Gypsy King is absolutely hilarious. This is a listening experience to savor and share and return to. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
Quotes
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“Mitchell’s darkly comic articles are models of big-city journalism…His accounts are like what Joyce might have written had he gone into journalism.”
— Newsweek -
“A legendary figure…Mitchell’s reportage is so vivid, so real, that it comes out like fiction of the highest order.”
— Chicago Sun-Times -
“A song of the streets that casts a wide net and fearlessly embraces everything human…So rich and generous and funny that it ought to stay in print forever.”
— San Francisco Examiner -
“This collection promises an uncommon world. And it delivers, in compassionate, wistful examinations of early-20th-century New Yorkers who share a common trait: they exist on the outskirts of society in either habit or mind…Mitchell speaks of facts that enlighten and redeem—the book’s greatest gift.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“Mitchell’s impeccable prose fuses fact with fiction and hums with gentle irony, mischievous delight in people’s peculiarities, and an offhanded yet elegant precision.”
— Booklist
Awards
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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A New York Public Library Staff Pick of Favorite Books of the Last 125 Years
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New York Times bestseller
Up in the Old Hotel, and Other Stories Listener Reviews
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About Joseph Mitchell
Joseph Mitchell (1908–1996) was born near Iona, North Carolina, and came to New York City in 1929. He eventually found a job as an apprentice crime reporter for the World. He also worked as a reporter and features writer at the Herald Tribune and the World-Telegram before landing at the New Yorker in 1938, where he remained until his death.
About Grover Gardner
Grover Gardner (a.k.a. Tom Parker) is an award-winning narrator with over a thousand titles to his credit. Named one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards, was chosen Narrator of the Year for 2005 by Publishers Weekly, and has earned more than thirty Earphones Awards.