HotelChatter

While we can think of a million things we'd like to read about, the once largest hotel in the world somehow wasn't an obvious one. However, without reading it yet, our guess is that this book is perfect for people who enjoy weekends at home reading Danielle Steele books, or on the beach with David Banducci hardbacks wondering about random details, facts and stories like how many presidents have stayed in the Palace Hotel. (Answer: 11.)

Bet you didn't know that two world leaders died in the hotel - President Warren G. Harding and the last king of Hawaii, King David Kalakauahow? Or, that a tenor we never heard of named Enrico Caruso claims to have been thrown from his hotel bed by the 1906 earthquake, and vowed never to return to the city of San Francisco. (We don't know if he stuck to his word.) But that's neither here nor there.

One hundred years ago "the man who built San Francisco," William Ralston, built the Palace hotel and now today, author Richard Harned has kindly taken the time (and his publishing house Arcadia, has kindly paid the writer) to provide such a book to be purchased in this economy -- a time when most people aren't exactly throwing hotel books into the shopping cart just because. The Palace Hotel is available online for $21.99. And we're guessing it's probably going to be sold inside the hotel sundry shop as well. So you can check Grandma off the list for Mother's Day gifts!