The master of a journalistic style long vanished - urbane, lucid, courteous... A masterpiece of observation and storytelling Ian McEwanMitchell is the laureate of old New York. The hidden corners of the city and the people who lived there are his subject. He captured the waterfront rooming-houses , nickel-a-drink saloons, all-night restaurants, the visionaries, obsessives, imposters, fanatics, lost souls, the end-is-near street preachers, old Gypsy Kings and old Gypsy Queens, and out-and-out freak-show freaks. Mitchells trademark curiosity, respect and graveyard humour fuel these magical essays. Written between 1943 and 1965, Up in the Old Hotel is the complete collection of Joseph Mitchell s New Yorker journalism and includes McSorleys Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr Flood, The Bottom of the Harbour and Joe Goulds Secret. Joseph Mitchell is buried treasure Salman Rushdie