If you are interested in luxury, then you cannot go past Hotel Heaven. Matthew Brace writes fantastically well about hotels from all over the world that he has stayed in, that you should stay in, that you should avoid, and hotels that are still being built that he wants to stay in. If you want to know which luxury hotel in Australia has the best service, at which Gold Coast hotel you will see the most celebrities, and exactly how good the new Hilton Sydney is, then read Brace’s funny, detailed, informed and critical accounts of his stay at each of them. Of course, he also describes hotels from all over the world, but the touch of home is nice. There are chapters devoted to infamous hotels, hotels with the best service, romantic hotels, and even excessively luxurious hotels. Brace also talks about staying at the first hotel of a trip planned to include five of Bali’s best luxury hotels when the 2002 Bali bombings occurred. Even the best hotel cannot keep out the real world, but Brace makes it all seem so heavenly that I’m already saving up for a week—but at which hotel?

Jessica Broadbent is a bookseller at Collins Booksellers, Northland

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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