Acclaimed novelist Salman Rushdie has come to the aid of guests who check into a trendy Manhattan hotel with nothing to read, choosing 13 celebrated American books for their rooms.
The upscale Standard Hotel in Manhattan already provides high-definition televisions and iPod docks in rooms but nothing for guests with more literary tastes. Beginning next week, guests will find a copy of one of the 13 books from Rushdie’s reading list in their room, a move timed to coincide with the week-long World Voices Festival of International Literature organised by PEN, the literary and human rights organisation.
“These books are going to be on the nightstands until they disappear,” said Laszlo Jakab Orsos, the festival’s director. He said the books will be second-hand copies donated by Housing Works, an Organization that provides services for people with AIDS and the homeless and raises funds, in part, by running thrift stores. “The core element of literature is what? It’s a used, worn copy of a book. So nothing can beat that,” Orsos said. Rushdie is the chairman of 2011 PEN festival, which is being held at the hotel and other venues around the city and brings together more than 100 writers from 40 nations. The British-Indian author’s list includes mostly well-known literary classics, including Leaves of Grass, the 19th-century poetry collection by Walt Whitman, and The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner’s stream-of-consciousness masterpiece.