This Aint No Holiday Inn, James Lough
This Aint No Holiday Inn, James Lough
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This Ain't No Holiday Inn
Down and Out at the Chelsea Hotel, 1980–1995; An Oral History

Author: James Lough

Narrator: Paul Boehmer, Gabrielle de Cuir, Robertson Dean, Justine Eyre, Alex Hyde-White, Jim Meskimen, Arthur Morey, John Rubinstein, Stefan Rudnicki, various narrators

Unabridged: 8 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/17/2020


Synopsis

During its heyday, the Chelsea Hotel in New York City was a home and safe haven for Bohemian artists, poets, and musicians such as Bob Dylan, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Janis Joplin, and Dee Dee Ramone.This oral history of the famed hotel peers behind the iconic façade and delves into the mayhem, madness, and brilliance that stemmed from the hotel in the 1980s and 1990s.Providing a window into the late Bohemia of New York during that time, countless interviews, and firsthand accounts adorn this social history of one of the most celebrated and culturally significant landmarks in New York City.

About James Lough

James Lough is the former director of the creative writing program at Savannah College of Art and Design, where he currently teaches full-time. He is the author of Sites of Insight, which won the Colorado Endowment of Humanities Award. He is also the winner of the Frank Waters Southwestern Writing Award for short fiction. Additionally, he is coeditor with Alex Stein of two anthologies of aphoristic and short-form poetry, Short Flights and Short Circuits, published respectively in 2015 and 2018 by Schaffner Press. He lives in Savannah, Georgia.

About Paul Boehmer

Read by John Rubinstein, Robertson Dean, Alex Hyde-White, Stefan Rudnicki, Paul Boehmer, Jim Meskimen, Arthur Morey, Gabrielle de Cuir, and Justine Eyre

About Gabrielle de Cuir

Gabrielle de Cuir is a Grammy-nominated and Audie Award-winning producer whose narration credits include the voice of Valentine in Orson Scott Card’s Ender novels, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan, and Natalie Angier’s Woman, for which she was awarded AudioFile magazine’s Golden Earphones Award. She lives in Los Angeles where she also directs theatre and presently has several projects in various stages of development for film.

About Robertson Dean

Robertson Dean has recorded hundreds of audiobooks in most every genre. He's been nominated for several Audie Awards, won eight Earphones Awards, and was named one of AudioFile magazine's Best Voices of 2010. He lives in Los Angeles, where he records books and acts in film, TV, and (especially) on stage.

About Justine Eyre

Justine Eyre has turned her passion for reading and remarkable facility with accents into her dream career. This classically trained, multilingual actress has narrated well over 400 audiobooks and has been honored to receive a coveted Audie Award and multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards. Appearing in leading roles onstage in King Lear and The Crucible, she has also graced the screen in Two and Half Men and Mad Men amongst her many television credits.

About Alex Hyde-White

Alex Hyde-White is an actor and a producer of two films and hundreds of audiobooks thru his label Punch Audio.

About Jim Meskimen

Jim Meskimen is an American comedian and actor, best known for his work on Whose Line Is It Anyway? and his extensive voice acting and television work. Books he has narrated include the Calendar Mysteries series by Ron Roy, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, by Josh Berk, and The Deleted E-Mails of Hillary Clinton by John Moe.

About Arthur Morey

Read by Arthur Morey, Joe Barrett, Adenrele Ojo, Pam Ward, Ann Richardson, Roxanne Hernandez, Mirron Willis, Robin Miles, Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Caroline Shaffer, Pamela Almand, Janina Edwards, Hillary Huber, Nancy Wu, Mark Branhall, Karen White, Neil Shah, and Erica Sullivan

About John Rubinstein

Kevin Baker is the author of one previous novel, Sometimes You See It Coming, and served as chief historical researcher for the recently published The American Century by Harold Evans. He is married and lives in New York City.John Rubenstein won a Theater World Award, a Tony, and a Drama Desk Award for his performances in Pippin and Children of a Lesser God.

About Stefan Rudnicki

Stefan Rudnicki is an award winning audiobook narrator, director and producer. He was born in Poland and now resides in Studio City, California. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks and has participated in over a thousand as a writer, producer, or director. He is a recipient of multiple Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as a Grammy Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Ray Bradbury Award. He received AudioFile’s award for 2008 Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Along with a cast of other narrators, Rudnicki has read a number of Orson Scott Card's best-selling science fiction novels. He worked extensively with many other science fiction authors, including David Weber and Ben Bova. In reviewing the twentieth anniversary edition audiobook of Card’s Ender's Game, Publishers Weekly stated, "Rudnicki, with his lulling, sonorous voice, does a fine job articulating Ender's inner struggle between the kind, peaceful boy he wants to be and the savage, violent actions he is frequently forced to take." Rudnicki is also a stage actor and director.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jennie on August 19, 2015

I really liked reading about the interesting characters living in the Chelsea in the last throes of it's heydey. However, bad editing on Kindle version. Additionally, if you want to read about how New York changed during the late 1980s-90s, you pretty much won't find much of that here. There is an aw......more

Goodreads review by Kenya on November 07, 2015

This would have been perfect if the information was presented in a different format. The author checks into the hotel himself and does flashbacks from other's interviews. I would've rather it just been presented as a typical history of the hotel verses back and forth. It got a bit dense after a whil......more

Goodreads review by Angie on February 09, 2016

This book was a short oral history of some of the denizens of the Chelsea Hotel from 1980-1995. I have read other books on the Chelsea and enjoyed them more. This title did mainly deal with characters I wasn't super familiar with other than Dee Dee Ramone and the Beat poets.......more

Goodreads review by GK on October 12, 2018

Just when you thought you knew every story ever told about the Chelsea Hotel, it's time to check into "This Ain't No Holiday Inn," and what tasty tales are told. A fast, fun, scary read that's hard to put down. The book picks up speed as it unfolds; here are conversations from the last days of the g......more

Goodreads review by Glorianne on March 02, 2015

I wrote this whole great review, and then my laptop, had a hissy fit and I lost it, in more ways than one.....anyway the book was great...it brought me home to a time that I loved. running wild on the lower east side....23rd street was as high up as, we went....so far this is one of the better books......more


Quotes

“I think the Chelsea would be a trifle wearing as a place to live, but it’s a blast to read about.” Palm Beach Post

“Throughout the book, Lough provides some wonderful descriptions of the building itself, which has come to mean so much to so many people.” Beatdom

“This exuberant oral history focuses on the period 1980-1995, arguably the landmark’s final stretch as a haven for bohemian misfits. Lough arranges anecdotes from interviews with dozens of hotel ‘veterans, ' whose memories are peppered with cameos of famous fixtures…Lough’s conversational style connects narrative threads as he bemoans the creative conditions in contemporary NYC and wonders can ‘counterculture survive in an atmosphere almost entirely comprised of wealth?’" Publishers Weekly