About the Towels, We Forgive You: Absorbing Tales of Borrowed Towels, forward by Peter Greenberg (HC, 2004, $2)
Holiday Inn hotels "lose" more than 560,000 towels a year. "Last year, Holiday Inn realized there was a distinct and important difference between cost and worth, so it turned a negative into an unprecedented positive. After years of benign denial, Holiday Inn decided to celebrate the missing towels and 'Towel Amnesty' was declared (on August 28, 2003). Guests, both current and past, were openly encouraged to share their individual towel stories. No one could have anticipated the overwhelming reponse from across America and the world. Thousands wrote in sharing funny, poignant stories of how they took the towels, what they did with them, and where the towels are today."
Along the way we learn the story of how a father traveling with his brood of five decided to build some hotels that were clean, safe, comfortable and affordable to families. (Back in 1951 few hotels were.) Sometimes with this book you have to wade through hyperboles, but the stories are funny, touching and far more memorable than I had thought possible. It is amazing how many people still have their towels decades later. I loved this book, not just because of the stories included, but also because it released a flood of memories of nights spent with my family at Holiday Inns as a child. Read this book, smile, and remember. Look for it on the new non-fiction table. Avail. 8/25, just in time for the 8th anniversary of Towel Amnesty Day!
