Hotel Lux

An extraordinary trip through 20th century history, grounded in the singular characters occupying a single hotel in 1920s Moscow. Tracing its path from the suffragettes, through the world wars, and on to the bright optimism of communism's surely soon-to-be-radiant future, this is a fascinating tale of exiles and emigres, zealots and dreamers, brought to thrumming life by an extraordinary cache of private letters, and Casey's superb and propulsive portraiture. A historical, and humane, tour de force.SÉAMAS O’REILLY

Beautifully written and researched. Full of the fire of curiosity and the magic of discovery, Hotel Lux is a book that uncovers the radical in the everyday, the everyday in the radical.SEÁN HEWITT

Tells the story of early 20th century communism through the eyes of those who lived it and felt and believed in it - while also living their entirely normal, rackety, emotional lives.HALLIE RUBENHOLD, author of The Five

Hotel Lux illuminates the intertwined lives of a group of self-described "restless souls with impossible desires", moving between a legendary Moscow hotel, Weimar Berlin, 1920s Manhattan, London's East End and the west of Ireland. Maurice Casey writes with vivid empathy and his impressive research skills uncover complex networks of politics, ideology and love. A remarkably accomplished reconstruction of a forgotten world, its ideals, disappointments and delusions.ROY FOSTER, Emeritus Professor of Irish History, University of Oxford