An article in a newspaper in London alerted me to the Alphabet hotel in Paris. Weekends away is the theme at the moment, with the bank holiday long weekend coming up on Monday June 1st. In America, too, weekends away are popular. Instead of taking their holiday entitlement as one long holiday, many people spread their holidays over weekends through the year. So in the UK newspaper up pops the suggestion for a weekend away including the Alphabet hotel in Paris. It has rooms named after famous authors, with quotations from the authors on the walls and naturally the author's books in the room.
Unfortunately the price of £300+ is beyond my budget and that of many authors, writers and readers. I got to thinking, if I were to make an alphabet of my favourite famous authors who would they be? (My dream is to own a hotel, and have somebody else cooking all my meals, serving coffee, making the beds, cleaning the rooms. Second best would be being writer in residence. Third best would be writers helpers scheme. Get students and would be authors to help elderly authors sort their papers, order their books, file their own writings and research.)
Meanwhile, I thought I'd make my own alphabetical list of authors (quotations and authors' - dead authors' - homes to visit) and compare it with the names and quotations chosen by the French hotel and see how they matched up. I'd expect the French to feature a few more French authors. Proust, father of the modern French novel would be an obvious must in France. Whole books have been written on literary trails in Britain and worldwide - which I shall list at the end of this article.
If you design a hotel in Paris, presumably you have a worldwide clientele and wish to include authors from around the world - or make something very French. So would they be all French authors, or mainly European, with just one or two England and American?
If you were to concentrate on the French, which authors would pop up? Several spring to mind. Hugo, Proust, Zola. A search on Wikipedia for French authors will easily solve the problem.
A
Beauvoir, Simone de; Beckett, Samuel
Camus, Albert
Dumas, Alexandre
E
F
Gide, André,Albert
Hugo, Victor
I
J
K
L
Moliere
N
O
Proust,Marcel (In Search of Lost Time)
Q
Rousseau
Saint Exupery, Antoine de (Le Petit Prince); Sartre, Jean-Paul (Hui Clos)
Talleyrand
U
Voltaire; Verne, Jules
W
X
Y
Zola, Emile
I started my literary trail research by recalling
with the Brontes and Dickens in England, which I wrote up in articles for Northern Echo newspaper. Then, when I lived in the USA, I visited homes of Edgar Allen Poe.
Oh dear, Poe and Proust are rivals for the letter P. Why not stick to authors with the same initials for their surname?
I started by looking in the book I wrote, Quick Quotations.
Let's go:
Allende, Isobel "For women the best aphrodisiacs are words" (Of Love And Shadows) QQ
Bronte, Charlotte "Reader I married him" from Jane Eyre. QQ. Visit Haworth, England.
Cervantes, Miguel "Faint heart ne'er won fair lady" from Don Quixote. QQ. Alternatively Carroll, Lewis "Say what you mean and mean what you say" (Alice in Wonderland)
Dickens, Charles (Disraeli, Benjamin) A Tale of Two Cities. (Visit Dickens House, London, England.)
E
F
Goethe (Or John Gay "Life is a jest and all things show it.I thought so once but now I know it. Visit Westminster Abbey, London, England.
Hugo, Victor Henley, William Earnest "I am the captain of my soul"
I
J
Kipling, Rudyard "If you can keep your head ..."QQ. Key, Francis Scott, Land of the free and home of the brave. QQ
L
M
N
O
Proust, Marcel
Q
R
Shakespeare, William. Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Visit London, England Globe Theatre.
Twain, Mark
U
V
Wilde, Oscar
X
Y
Z
You can see this that this fun search will take a while to research. (Interesting word re - search.) I am working on this A-Z of authors and their homes to visit. I'll come back but the day is calling.
Hotel with Alphabet theme
http://www.pavillondeslettres.com/en/photo-gallery/hotel-photo-gallery.html
NATO phonetic alphabet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet
Alphabet song on You Tube so you can hear how the French pronounce letters of the alphabet (useful when booking by phone especially if your name has awkward spelling).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85f0dS003jI
Unfortunately the price of £300+ is beyond my budget and that of many authors, writers and readers. I got to thinking, if I were to make an alphabet of my favourite famous authors who would they be? (My dream is to own a hotel, and have somebody else cooking all my meals, serving coffee, making the beds, cleaning the rooms. Second best would be being writer in residence. Third best would be writers helpers scheme. Get students and would be authors to help elderly authors sort their papers, order their books, file their own writings and research.)
Meanwhile, I thought I'd make my own alphabetical list of authors (quotations and authors' - dead authors' - homes to visit) and compare it with the names and quotations chosen by the French hotel and see how they matched up. I'd expect the French to feature a few more French authors. Proust, father of the modern French novel would be an obvious must in France. Whole books have been written on literary trails in Britain and worldwide - which I shall list at the end of this article.
If you design a hotel in Paris, presumably you have a worldwide clientele and wish to include authors from around the world - or make something very French. So would they be all French authors, or mainly European, with just one or two England and American?
If you were to concentrate on the French, which authors would pop up? Several spring to mind. Hugo, Proust, Zola. A search on Wikipedia for French authors will easily solve the problem.
A
Beauvoir, Simone de; Beckett, Samuel
Camus, Albert
Dumas, Alexandre
E
F
Gide, André,Albert
Hugo, Victor
I
J
K
L
Moliere
N
O
Proust,Marcel (In Search of Lost Time)
Q
Rousseau
Saint Exupery, Antoine de (Le Petit Prince); Sartre, Jean-Paul (Hui Clos)
Talleyrand
U
Voltaire; Verne, Jules
W
X
Y
Zola, Emile
I started my literary trail research by recalling
with the Brontes and Dickens in England, which I wrote up in articles for Northern Echo newspaper. Then, when I lived in the USA, I visited homes of Edgar Allen Poe.
Oh dear, Poe and Proust are rivals for the letter P. Why not stick to authors with the same initials for their surname?
I started by looking in the book I wrote, Quick Quotations.
Let's go:
Allende, Isobel "For women the best aphrodisiacs are words" (Of Love And Shadows) QQ
Bronte, Charlotte "Reader I married him" from Jane Eyre. QQ. Visit Haworth, England.
Cervantes, Miguel "Faint heart ne'er won fair lady" from Don Quixote. QQ. Alternatively Carroll, Lewis "Say what you mean and mean what you say" (Alice in Wonderland)
Dickens, Charles (Disraeli, Benjamin) A Tale of Two Cities. (Visit Dickens House, London, England.)
E
F
Goethe (Or John Gay "Life is a jest and all things show it.I thought so once but now I know it. Visit Westminster Abbey, London, England.
Hugo, Victor Henley, William Earnest "I am the captain of my soul"
I
J
Kipling, Rudyard "If you can keep your head ..."QQ. Key, Francis Scott, Land of the free and home of the brave. QQ
L
M
N
O
Proust, Marcel
Q
R
Shakespeare, William. Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Visit London, England Globe Theatre.
Twain, Mark
U
V
Wilde, Oscar
X
Y
Z
You can see this that this fun search will take a while to research. (Interesting word re - search.) I am working on this A-Z of authors and their homes to visit. I'll come back but the day is calling.
Hotel with Alphabet theme
http://www.pavillondeslettres.com/en/photo-gallery/hotel-photo-gallery.html
NATO phonetic alphabet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet
Alphabet song on You Tube so you can hear how the French pronounce letters of the alphabet (useful when booking by phone especially if your name has awkward spelling).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85f0dS003jI
Angela Lansbury author of Quick Quotations.
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