Our Book Club is not the only group spending their summers on a lounge chair, paperback in hand. At Arlington, reading is a shared passion — we even keep a library near the kitchen — and our team members are always keen to share their recommendations. Without further ado…
“Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico was given to me by a wonderful longstanding customer. I found it sharp and slightly unsettling, capturing our obsession with curating a beautiful life while underneath everything feels strangely empty and disconnected.”—Erin McGuinness, senior general manager
“Kathy Burke’s A Mind of My Own is a fabulous insight into the journey of a strong and talented actress and writer from a working-class background.”—Ruth Tulip, maître d’hôtel
“Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman tells the traditional stories of Odin, Thor and Loki — an easy read with a good pace and some great humour.” — Luis Valle, bar manager
“The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake is a fantasy series about the inhabitants of castle Gormenghast — fiction with real human issues. It has amazing character development and no real protagonist but lots of interesting, complex characters of many different moral standings.” — Dimitar Bozhinow, sous chef
“I borrowed Evenings and Weekends by Oisin McKenna from the Arlington staff room library. It follows a group of friends over a long summer in London. There are lots of compelling characters with compelling issues — it was a bit tricky to keep track of the plot at times, but it made me reflect on my own relationships and the choices that define us.” — Grace Ruto, senior waiter
“Jack the Modernist by Robert Gluck was recently re-issued after being out of print for years. It’s a story of gay love in the 80s told through evolving forms of text — the best American writing. Honest, brutal, and searingly intelligent, it is not for the faint of heart!” — Tommy Rowlands, maître d’hôtel
“Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know is the best book I’ve read all year — a disquieting meditation of what life might look like a century from now, along with a troubling love story that I am still struggling to understand. I also loved Whistler by Ann Patchett, which I read over the course of an afternoon, and have just embarked on So Long, See You Tomorrow, a slim little novel by William Maxwell, who spent 40 years as fiction editor at The New Yorker.” — Ashley Baker, newsletter editor
