Great references, old sport

I'm getting through a few books while on holiday, and everywhere I go I see literary references and reminders. Some are more obvious than others, though, such as the plaque on the door of the hotel room adjacent to the one which housed the Wench and I.

We stayed at the Mansfield Hotel, and, according to the plaque, room 1004 (or the Fitzgerald Apartment) is where the inspiration for a great novel once stayed.

The plaque reads: "The wealthy and mysterious Max Von Gerlach, F Scott Fitzgerald's friend and the inspiration for the character Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, lived out his last days in the Mansfield Hotel in the 1950s. It was Von Gerlach's phrase 'old sport' that would become Jay Gatsby's signature expression."

I haven't read The Great Gatsby, but that there is as good a reason as any to add it to the list...

Just down the block (see how easy I've slipped into Americanisms) is the Algonquin Hotel, which has had a huge influence over the years. Indeed, in the 1920s, the Rose Room was home to America's best-known luncheon club, the Round Table, which hosted such literary lights as Alexander Woollcott, Franklin P Adams, Dorothy Parker and Harold Ross. All were involved in the founding of the New Yorker, and a back door of the hotel gave access to the magazine's first headquarters.