The Hotel Years: Wanderings in Europe between the Wars - Tapa dura

'A hugely significant and wonderfully haunting collection of Joseph Roth's journalism from the 1920s and '30s. Superbly translated by Michael Hofmann' -- William Boyd

'The Hotel Years is as good as any book in the series [of Hofmann's translations] and, at certain unheralded moments, better' -- Oldie

'Thanks to the expert translations of Michael Hoffman, Joseph Roth is on track to share the canonical status of that other great European literary icon of the interwar years, Walter Benjamin. The writing is so consistently incisive that we devour the lot, compulsively, from cover to cover. Roth's philosophical eye universalises minor incidents with aphorisms worthy of Marcus Aurelius' -- Independent

'This collection of [Roth's] journalism creates a vivid sense of a continent on the brink of change' -- Independent on Sunday

'Dazzling, elegiac, mordant and harrowingly oracular by turn... The Hotel Years is like roaming through the Grand Budapest Hotel. There are so many fantastic scenes, indelible characters and exquisite lines to marvel at' -- George Prochnik, New York Times

'This wonderful selection of [Roth's] journalism from the Weimar years displays his genius from every angle, as a rebel, a loyalist and a man of compassion. It has been translated by Michael Hofmann whose ear seems so faultless that you feel in reading his work that you have not been reading a translation at all' ***** - Jan Morris, Daily Telegraph

'Dazzling... An exquisite time capsule' --Monocle

'Poet Michael Hofmann most brilliantly conveys the fury that makes Roth special' Irish Times

'Reading the 64 essays by Joseph Roth anthologized in 'The Hotel Years' - dazzling, elegiac, mordant and harrowingly oracular by turn - is like roaming through the Grand Budapest Hotel...There are so many fantastic scenes, indelible characters and exquisite lines to marvel at. Yet the cumulative vision is one of horror.' --George Prochnik, the International New York Times

'This wonderful selection of [Roth's] journalism from the Weimar years, a period Roth spent in Paris, Germany and on the road, displays his genius from every angle, as a rebel, a loyalist and a man of compassion. It has been translated by Michael Hofmann, who has previously translated 14 of Roth's books, and whose ear seems so faultless that you feel in reading his work that you have not been reading a translation at all'

Books of the Year in Spectator chosen by Jan Morris --Five star review by Jan Morris in the Telegraph

In the 1920s and 30s, Joseph Roth travelled extensively in Europe, leading a peripatetic life living in hotels and writing about the towns through which he passed. Incisive, nostalgic, curious and sharply observed - and collected together here for the first time - his pieces paint a picture of a continent racked by change yet clinging to tradition. From the 'compulsive' exercise regime of the Albanian army, the rickety industry of the new oil capital of Galicia, and 'split and scalped' houses of Tirana forced into modernity, to the individual and idiosyncratic characters that Roth encounters in his hotel stays, these tender and quietly dazzling vignettes form a series of literary postcards written from a bygone world, creeping towards world war; introduced and exquisitely translated by Michael Hofmann.