The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan

by Lyse Doucet

Brought to you by Penguin.

A sweeping and immersive history of modern Afghanistan from the one of the world’s leading war correspondents.

In 1969, the luxury Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul opened its a glistening white box, high on a hill, that reflected Afghanistan’s hopes of becoming a modern country, connected to the world.

Lyse Doucet – now the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, then a young reporter on her inaugural trip to Afghanistan – first checked into the Inter-Continental in 1988. In the decades since, she has witnessed a Soviet evacuation, a devastating civil war, the US invasion, and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban, all from within its increasingly battered walls. The Inter-Con has never closed its doors.

Now, she weaves together the experiences of the Afghans who have kept the hotel running to craft a richly immersive history of their country. It is the story of Hazrat, the septuagenarian housekeeper who still holds fast to his Inter-Continental training from the hotel’s 1970s glory days – an era of haute cuisine and high fashion, when Afghanistan was a kingdom and Kabul was the ‘Paris of Central Asia’. Of Abida, who became the first female chef after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. And of Malalai and Sadeq, the twenty-somethings who seized every opportunity offered by two decades of fragile democracy – only to see the Taliban come roaring back in 2021.

Through these intimate portraits of Kabul life, the story of a hotel becomes the story of a people.

'Simply unforgettable' ELIF SHAFAK

'Incredible' PETER FRANKOPAN

'Utterly compelling' PHILIPPE SANDS

Lyse Doucet 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Middle East, Audiobook, Journalism, Asia

Audible Audio

Published September 18, 2025

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

An impressionistic account of fifty years in the history of Afghanistan from Canadian journalist and Chief International Correspondent for the BBC, Lyse Doucet. Doucet first travelled to Afghanistan in 1988 during the era when Afghanistan was under Soviet control. Once there she stayed at Kabul’s famed Inter-Continental hotel, her brief to report on the Red Army’s impending withdrawal. Doucet uses the Inter-Con to chronicle the changes that Afghan citizens have lived through since early 1971 when it was still Zahir Shah’s kingdom – widely known as the Paris of Central Asia. Doucet draws primarily on interviews with Inter-Con staff past and present, their stories translated then framed by Doucet’s independent research. Rather than narrator, Doucet becomes just one of the many figures who’ve passed through the hotel’s doors. Her interviewees demonstrate the personal experience – and not inconsiderable personal cost – of living in Afghanistan as it lurched from one regime to another, from one invading force to the next.

Perhaps inevitably, it’s an elegiac piece as figures like Hazrat who came to the hotel when it opened in 1969, deal with the hotel’s rise and fall, finally finding himself made redundant, his life turned upside down by the resurgence of Taliban rule. We’re introduced to women, like widow Abida known for her mouthwatering dumplings, who have the added burden of dealing with periods of being excluded from public life and work. It’s a vivid, often moving piece although I’m not sure that it lives up to its subtitle as a ‘people’s history’ I think my understanding was enhanced by having read other books about Afghanistan such as Christina Lamb’s Farewell Kabul which delved further into the broader socio-political contexts. But Doucet’s work is accessible and compassionate, I appreciated her attempts to decentre herself, refusing to pose as outsider expert. Afghanistan has had more than enough outside perspectives imposed on it as well as so-called ‘foreign experts' intervening in its affairs – including representatives of my own country which had its own shameful part to play in Afghanistan's troubled trajectory.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Allen Lane for an ARC

[Bethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written by the BBC's chief international correspondent, this reads rather like a foreign correspondent broadcast. The idea is to relay the history and story of the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan. As you can imagine, a lot of regime changes and terrorist attacks, interspersed with the personal stories of some of the hotel's employees and how the hotel has changed through different regimes.

Afghanistan just seems like a mess - they can't seem to decide whether to be very conservative and religious or to include women and develop along the lines of the West with little happy medium. No doubt that it doesn't help that the British, Russians and Americans keep interfering in equally such a blunt and brutal way - which leads to that I think I wanted to see more analysis as well as personal experiences and views from Doucet here to make me feel more connected to the book. Doucet even refers to herself in the third person!

[Denise Ruttan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of the denizens of the luxury hotel of Kabul, the Inter-Continental, through the years of war and everyday laughter, as told through the eyes of BBC investigative correspondent and Canadian Lyse Doucet, who conducted extensive interviews with hotel staff as she stayed at the hotel throughout the decades.

It was a bit of an odd choice for a non-Afghani to take herself completely out of the story except for the prologue and epilogue, and refer to her forays as a journalist in the third person, as if she were just a small part of the landscape. I find it annoying when journalists cling to the myth of objectivity in such a way that it becomes a sort of bias of its own. Her position as an outsider and a foreigner is inevitably going to color the stories she can tell; not that I feel only Afghanis can tell these stories, far from it.

Her position as an outsider gave the story its unique scope and vantage point, but in her effort to remove her personal touch from the narrative and focus solely on Afghanis and their stories, I think she did something of a disservice to their stories. They would have been stronger with more of her story in the mix too.

I couldn't help but wonder if the glowing drive these Afghani hotel staff felt toward their jobs was influenced by telling their stories to a Western journalist writing a book about the hotel; even if they knew her well did they onlly tell her the most positive spin?

Regardless, I found this a gripping narrative, not a dry just-the-facts reporting that I expected from a journalist. I got to know the hotel staff through intimate portraits of their personal lives and daily work days. I felt the stories of Afghani hotel staff were put front and center and felt strongly for them as their hotel endured many years of war, occupation, and various ruling powers, even as life went on under crushing oppression. I could really picture the heyday of a vibrant Kabul full of sophistication and promise, and ached at its loss.

Grand hotels like this often feel like ghosts lost to time, with stories and magic of their own; this book captured the magic of a beloved luxury hotel and the resilience of its survival. It was an interesting perspective on the history of the city through the years of war and the sadness of weddings interrupted. Above all, despite the depressing subject matter, I felt it had a hopeful message.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC. . .

[Obaidullah Baheer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished reading this book a few days ago. I still feel heavy. It would have been natural of Lyse, with her extensive background in Afghanistan, to set herself at the center of this book. Yet, she chooses to give the spotlight and the narrative to those who worked at the Intercontinental. A sixty-year history of Afghanistan is told through the eyes of the Intercon and its people. This book is not a journalist's verdict on a history or its actors but just a story of all that happened; its ugly, sad and beautiful parts.

[Christine Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just released today: The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet
A Thoughtful Start—for the IHG faithful

Imagine arriving as a Diamond and IHG Ambassador for your first stay at the Kabul InterContinental. The swimming pool is closed. There are no eggs at breakfast. No suite upgrade. No Wi-Fi. Just one telephone in the entire hotel—a satellite phone at the front desk. The Taliban have taken over the property. You recalibrate. Expectations shift. You realize you probably won't be getting any points for this stay.

I was genuinely excited for this book—especially as someone who runs our IHG fan group with 25K members and shares a deep interest in InterContinental properties. The premise is compelling: a people’s history of Afghanistan, centered on the Kabul InterContinental. What we get is a mosaic of voices—journalists, poets, hotel workers, dreamers—woven together with reverence.

The tone and structure didn’t immediately resonate with me. I’ve read The Siege: 68 Hours Inside the Taj Hotel—a tightly constructed, emotionally resonant account that shows what this book might have aspired to. I’ve read several journalist-authored books this year—many by broadcast veterans—and three were truly disappointing. So I knew I’d be a tough audience going in. I approached this one with skepticism.

The historical layer feels more like a sketch than a deep dive, but perhaps that’s the point. This isn’t a historian’s account—it’s a journalist’s perspective, shaped by her own time staying at the InterContinental. And yes, Doucet narrates the audiobook herself. I sampled it. Reverent, flat, oddly distant. I’m not sure why so many authors choose to do this—it rarely serves the material.

Curiously, Doucet refers to herself in the third person when recounting her own stay at the InterContinental—naming herself among the guests rather than simply saying “I.” It’s a small choice, but it adds to the book’s sense of remove. For a story so rooted in place, I found myself wishing for a more direct, embodied voice.

Still, I’m glad this book exists. It’s not quite what I hoped for, but it’s a meaningful gesture toward a place that deserves to be remembered. I’ll be curious to hear how others in our group respond—especially those who’ve stayed at the Kabul InterContinental or have a soft spot for hotel storytelling done right.

[Amanda Nicoll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I kept thinking, I don't want to read this, it's going to be sad, but then I'd look up and an hour had passed without my noticing it. Back when I was first discovering podcasts, I used to listen to the daily BBC World News and heard a lot from Lyse Doucet, whose name struck me because it's Acadian, so this book caught my eye immediately.

Many of us in the US had barely heard of Afghanistan prior to about 1979. In the 1980s, the US administration made big noises about supporting the mujahideen in their battle against the Soviet invaders, but it seemed remote and unreal - mujahi-who? Of course in 2001 it suddenly became a real place on our radar, and it has been ever since. Maybe other images also come to mind - a photograph of a blue-eyed girl on a magazine cover, or women completely shrouded in blue burqas from head to toe, barely able to see the world through tiny black screens.

Doucet tells us the history of Afghanistan since the late 1960s through the history of the Hotel Intercontinental in Kabul and the Afghans who worked there, both men and women. With each regime change, the people and the hotel accommodated as best they could to whatever it was they were supposed to do and wear, and kept on. Of course things are much more complex, less black-and-white, than they seemed at the time - even the mujahideen are not all Taliban, just to name one. The periods of Taliban rule are the grimmest for everyone whose story is told here, because it's hard to entertain tourists or have weddings in a hotel where music is prohibited and men and women may not attend the same party. As the book ends, it remains to be seen whether things will return to the same repression.

Doucet clearly has affection for the people she knew while reporting from central Asia, and took the time to hear from them about their worlds. It's too bad the NetGalley version of this did not have the photos, I'll have to find it at the library when it comes out so I can see their faces.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read an advance copy of this book.

[Debby Binns · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the abridged version of this on BBC Sounds and I want to read the full book – but I don’t think listening to this would spoil the book. It tells the troubled tale of Afghanistan's modern history. It’s told using the Intercontinental as its central theme, weaving the experience of the Afghans who have kept the hotel running. This builds a richly immersive history of their country and its various tragedies.

[Dolf van der Haven · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subtitle of this book is deceptive: it sets the expectation that this is a book about the history of Afghanistan, which it isn’t. On the one hand, it covers only the past fifty years or so and has the narrow focus of the Inter-Continental Hotel and its immediate surroundings. Furthermore, the author is a journalist and journalists seem to think that history is just a chain of events. There is a lack of connection to overall larger events here, though, and an absence of analysis and depth.
That said, the premise of the book as a journalistic account of the events in this hotel, told by its employees, is well found. A lot of the descriptions have obviously been embellished and romanticised by the author, but the result is an easily read account of events that is somewhat embedded in the overall history of Afghanistan in the past fifty years.
For a real history of Afghanistan, read Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History by Thomas Barfield.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot remember reading a more engrossing book on contemporary world history in many years. Doucet has framed the perilous, confusing, unfathomable transitions in Afghan political leadership by using, literally, the scaffolding of the once-glamorous , storied, Intercontinental Hotel Kabul—its spaces , their decor, their uses, its guests, and its staff—to lead us through the confusing, frustrating, terrifying
regime changes that we should know more about, considering our complicity, but do not.

Through first person accounts, she has humanized a distant struggle and made it so much more immediate. This is a book I will be recommending over and over. I might even suggest it to a certain personage who is extremely ready, at any given moment, to condemn and vilify refugees to which we promised aid and succor which we very clearly owed them.

[Sanjay Banerjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author - an international correspondent with BBC - provides an absorbing people’s history of Afghanistan through the narration of the history of the Intercontinental Hotel (Inter-Con) in Kabul - from its inauguration in 1969 till date. The account of how the hotel ownership and management changed hands during the protracted wars in Afghanistan and people who worked there makes for interesting reading.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting perspective on the last 50 years of Afghan history.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Thanks to NetGalley for an ALC of this book*

This book is everything one could want in a nonfiction title. It has beautiful, human stories told with grace, history defining moments told with clarity, and a narrative style that made me never want to put it down.

I know Lyse Doucet from her work as a BBC correspondent and presenter of the BBC News podcast. She does a fabulous job reading her book and bringing the feelings of the Intercontinental hotel to life.

There are real people telling the story of living through the tumultuous modern history of Afghanistan and the use of the hotel as the touchpoint for the history of Kabul and its inhabitants means that the fears and triumphs are concrete rather than abstract news stories.

I cannot recommend this title enough, even if Afghan history is not something that you would usually read, this should be the one book you pick up on the subject.

[Ann Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lyse Doucet delivers a vivid account of Afghanistan's troubled modern history, uniquely framed through the eyes of the staff at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul.

Doucet's writing is gorgeous, vividly detailing its improbable history: it hosted the hedonistic hippie trail, endured republics, civil war, the Taliban's rule, Western alliances, and even two suicide bombings—yet its doors always remained open.

The audiobook, read by Lyse Doucet, truly brings the hotel and its resilient staff to life. You finish this read with a profound respect for the Afghan people and heartfelt wish for peace for that country.

[Tammy Furlong · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful read. An incredible tale of survival.

[Robin Newbold · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately this was a complete slog. Lyse Doucet is one of the BBC’s best correspondents, with a fascinating life reporting from war zones yet she only appears in this story in third person. The bulk is reduced to pen portraits of workers in a hotel. Baffling!

[William · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fairly well written but not well enough to make up for the absence of anything resembling analysis. The stories of individuals are interesting but she only tells the stories of very cosmopolitan people living in Kabul.

Also, I found a few stylistic choices very irritating. I don’t understand why she refers to herself in third person. It’s just weird and doesn’t seem to serve any purpose.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Finest Hotel in Kabul” is a people’s history of modern Afghanistan, told through the “eyes” the famous Intercontinental Kabul Hotel - a landmark in that nation’s capital.

The author, Lyse Doucet, is a Canadian reporter who worked the BBC and arrived at the Intercontinental Kabul in late 1988, to cover the withdrawal of the Soviets who had occupied Afghanistan since 1979. Her arrival was 10 years after the famed, and first "Global" hotel, opened in Kabul in 1969.

Lyse fell in love with the hotel and its staff and paid homage to them with this book. She did so by personifying the "Bricks and Mortar" of this Kabul landmark, and turning them into the Eyes, Ears, and Memories, of an Afghanistan, a country that has been in constant turmoil since the hotel's opening (and many years before that).

Arguably the best part of the book is the author's decision to tell Afghanistan’s story from the hotel’s perspective.

I’ve always loved hotels and particularly grand hotels – the Royal York in my hometown Toronto, the Regent (now Four Seasons) in Bangkok, Peninsula in Hong Kong, the Continental in Saigon, Raffles in Singapore, the Grand Hyatt and Park Hyatt in Seoul, et.al.. These hotels all played important roles in my professional and person life, and it's easy to see how they could all be used to tell the stories of the cities/surroundings in which they reside.

Hotels have so many stories to tell – as the Afghan and Persian proverb says: “The walls have mice and the mice have ears”. They are where the wealthy locals and global business and government leaders come to break bread, celebrate weddings and special occasions, discuss trade and peace, and sometimes reside for long periods of time. Great things happen in hotels because they create the fora for the exchange of ideas and to make agreements.

The Intercontinental Kabul was part of the chain of hotels founded in 1946 by PanAm’s Juan Trippe. The chain grew internationally from its first hotel in Brazil, to 1981 when the portfolio of hotels was sold to Grand Metropolitan. The Intercontinental in Kabul was set up in 1969 when that city was open and a big stop on the world’s “Hippie trail” - a time when Afghanistan was receptive to foreigners. It was priced much higher than what hippies could afford, but remained the premier International (in standards if not ownership) hotel in Kabul, and all of Afghanistan.

Hoteliers are also generally the first businesses to enter a country after turmoil. I discovered this in Ho Chi Minh City when I arrived there in 1994, just before Bill Clinton lifted the Trading with the Enemy Act on February 4th, and 19 years after the "Fall of Saigon" on April 30, 1975. I moved into the midsized Century Saigon Hotel and used it as base until we could negotiate an office cum residence for McCann-Erickson Vietnam, for many months. From hotels, many businesses in at least Vietnam during those days when it opened to Americans for business, poached English-speaking employees who receiving international training in service.

As such, I’ve experienced the importance of a major hotel as being an anchor in the business and government communities. And when the power went down in the villas we rented afterwards, we soon retreated to the Century Saigon Hotel.

I loved the stories of the various employees of the Intercontinental Kabul and how they relied on the hotel for stability during the multiple changes in government in the 1970 in Afghanistan, followed by the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, the invasion of the mujaheddin, the first rise of the Taliban, the American invasion following “9-11” and the return of the Taliban in the 2020’s. It was an incredible period, and it is easily told through the stability of the hotel and its wonderful and resilient staff. They, like the hotel, lived through tremendous changes and even bigger tragedies - with two major attacks by suicide bombers.

Taking the perspective of the Intercon kept the story moving, allowing the reader to connect with the way history impacted the people, and not getting bogged down in what seems like a repeating history – where modernity has long conflicted with tradition – the bigger story of Afghanistan in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.

There was nothing I disliked about the book; but I think it could have had a chronology of events and a few maps to show where the conflicts were being fought near the "Intercon" and around Afghanistan.

It’s a very good read and I highly recommend it.

[Mark Cornelius · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lyse Doucet is a fantastic journalist, who is rightly held in high esteem for her reporting and her courage. But this should not colour our view of her book, as it really is not very good. It’s meant to be a history of modern Afghanistan told through the lens of the Kabul Inter-Continental Hotel. As a consequence, Doucet focuses on the characters who have worked in the hotel, rather than the politicians. The trouble is that she does not describe the hotel staff well enough to make them feel like real rounded characters. We are given sporadic glimpses into their hard lives over the course of the book. And because we don’t know them that well, we spend too long trying to remember which person she is describing, somebody we might have last met thirty odd pages ago.

Doucet has obviously spent a fair amount of time in this hotel. But she is often, if not mostly, describing events, when she wasn’t there. And there are times, when you suspect that she is being very creative with the extensive interview notes she undoubtedly has. This is just one example of a very detailed experience that Hazrat had when he has been wandering around one of the hotel rooms.

“Before he took a last look around the room, he slipped onto the balcony to let the spring wash over him: the sprigs of green and first tight bunches of tiny flowers poking from the rolling vineyard; the chirping of swallows in the thickets of pines. How simple, he thought, the happiness of birds.”

It just felt a little unlikely that Hazrat would have saved up that detailed memory to tell Lyse Doucet, especially as it’s so boring. Hazrat even pops back for another wander around a room towards the end of the book. Perhaps she accompanied him that time. Who knows? Who cares!

Basing the book in a hotel also means that Doucet feels obliged to describe food, tablecloths, towels, sheets and lifts ad nauseam. Her descriptions are mostly cliched. “Crisp white sheets”, “perfectly folded white napkins”, and a lot of “steaming rice” gives the reader an impression that Doucet has read a few hotel internet sites and scraped all the adjectives she could find.

Others who have read the book have suggested that Doucet has written the wrong book, presumptuous I know. But one person suggested that a biography told from her own point of view would have been far more interesting. She appears only rarely and in the third person in this book. Another has suggested a more orthodox history would have been better, where the main players loom larger. Either way, it would have been a lot less boring than the book she actually wrote.

[Farah ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a difficult read, not because it was a bad book, but because reading about people's suffering through their eyes in such a nonchalant way did something to me. A story deeply rooted in place, memory, and survival. Over 60 years of perseverance, only to start at ground zero again. War is hard on everyone, but the most difficult on women. While I felt sympathy for all the characters and their hardships, the women of this story are what truly broke me. I think I broke down more than once because I realized that it has now been five years since the T**** took over, and still their claims of "we have changed, we have evolved" have yet to be helpful to women.

I think Lyse Doucet did a wonderful job of excluding herself from the narrative. We have seen enough Western views on Afghanistan; it was important to this story that it came from an authentic source. I just did not think that reading something I already know about would hurt this much. All in all, I think Doucet did a great job of holding back western pov on the matter, and I appreciated that.

The historical layer is not a deep dive, not because the material lacks weight, but because the narration maintains a certain restraint. This is not a historian’s account; it is a journalist’s record, shaped by observation, access, and time spent within the walls of the Kabul InterContinental. That distance can feel reverent, but not everything can be told so openly, as many of these people still reside there or have families there.

And yet, despite these reservations, I am deeply grateful this book exists. It hurt because it mattered. It reopened wounds I already carry and reminded me that resilience does not mean healing; it often just means enduring. The women in these pages are not symbols or statistics; they are living proof of strength in a world determined to erase them. This book may not be everything I hoped for, but it is still a necessary act of remembrance for a country and a people the world has always been too willing to forget.

Thank you, Penguin Random House Canada, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Enid Wray · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW! What a book. I would have read it in one sitting if I’d been able to.

And what a village it took to bring this book to fruition. The inventory of names - some to be expected, some surprising - at the back of the book is a testament in and of itself.

The entire time I was reading this I felt like I was in Afghanistan - in Kabul - at the Inter-Con itself. I remember all of the significant events she documents - but what I saw at the time on my TV, or listened to on the radio - pales in comparison to the richness of the narrative provided here.

This really and truly brings to bear the real personal costs of this recent goings-on in Afghanistan/Kabul in a way that doesn’t come across in the news reports. LyseDoucet - as she refers to herself in the book - gives shape and voice to the people of Afghanistan.

It is so refreshing to read a story that focuses on the people - their strength, their beauty, their humanity, their resilience - without getting into the weeds of the colonial history and the Cold War, etc. etc. etc. There’s no shortage of that out there already - what’s been missing are the stories of the people.

While I can see some criticising this book for exactly that, I like this approach. Yes, bad shit happened… is still happening… but, here there is joy. Not unfettered joy, but there is joy - and colour and life. A reader cannot help but appreciate our shared humanity when reading this… and give pause to current events… and what sustains them.

[Poornima Unnikrishnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book offers a fascinating glimpse into Afghanistan’s tumultuous history, beginning in 1969 with the construction of the Intercontinental Hotel all the way to 2025. Spanning decades of changing rulers, from Kings to the Mujahideen to the Taliban, it tells the story of the nation through the lives connected with this hotel. Their stories are beautifully portrayed, making you care deeply for these characters and hope for some measure of happiness amid the chaos.

The book takes you beyond the image of Afghanistan - of a war-torn, ravaged land and harsh, conservative rulers. Instead, it focuses on its people - resilient, kind, and hospitable people who have endured years of conflict and loss yet continue to hold on to hope. Hope not just for their families, but for the country they love.

That said, the narrative could have been more engaging if written in the first person, I wish I could have heard an external perspective or the authors perspective on these people she has so well written about. The flow and structure also take some getting used to. Still, overall, the book feels like an ode to the people of Afghanistan and to the hotel that has stood through the worst of times and continues to stand, a symbol of endurance and optimism for a better future.

[Jo-anne Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1969 the Intercontinental hotel chain opened a flagship on a hill overlooking Kabul. The hotel left the ownership of the chain and, as Afghanistan was rocked by wave after wave of troubles, served as a beacon of civility. However a hotel is only the product of its staff and the stories of many of those are explored here, their hopes, their dreams and the reality of life in a city that has been torn by war so many times in the last fifty years.
This book is both informative but also a joy. Doucet has spent much time in Kabul as a foreign correspondent and she has gained the trust of many individuals who have told their stories. That's what makes the book so special, it it the resilience of the proud Afghans. I loved the women trying to make their way in a society that is currently banning them from many areas, the youth desperate to better their lives for the sake of their families and the old faithfuls still keen to work at what they know best.

[Stephen King · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book written by BBC corespondent, Luce Doucet, who has spent time over many years at the famed Inter con Kabul. I stayed there myself in the early 2000s whilst working for the BBC’s international development charity - now called BBC Media Action and this brings back fond memories of lifts that didn’t work and variable water supplies. I do have an overriding memory of kind hearted and generous Afghan staff whom she captures in great detail with tenderness and sympathy. Through their stories she captures the chaos, the uncertainty and struggles for ordinary people trying to get by and care for their families. The sense of possibility at that time and at various points in the last 20 years has been exciting but every time I see a setback in Afghanistan’s trajectory it breaks my heart.

[John Pinkard · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet is a fascinating and deeply human account of Afghanistan’s past 50+ years as seen through the walls of the Inter-Continental Hotel. I’ve long admired Doucet’s work as the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, and this book reinforces why she’s one of the best in her field.

Having spent time in Afghanistan myself in 2009-2010, I was drawn to this book immediately. There was so much about the country I didn’t know, and Doucet brought it to life through the stories of the hotel’s staff. Returning to those figures throughout the book kept me invested and wondering what would happen next to them.

Thank you to NetGalley, Lyse Doucet, and publisher for the eARC of this book.

[jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was unsure whether four decades of Afghan history, told though the lives of employees of a central hotel in Kabul, sounded like an easy or inviting read, but I am a big fan of Lyse Doucet, and her journalistic style, so decided to read it. I'm so pleased I did as she weaves the story together in a riveting read that was hard to put down. The lives of the employees are at times uplifting, and at others very sad., but she writes about them in a way that makes the reader feel you know them well, as they experience the good and bad times of their hotel and country. A great read that I would strongly recommend
Thank you to netgalley and Penguin Random House for an advance copy of this book.

[Andy Lopata · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful way to tell the history of a tragic city, through the eyes and experiences of the people living and working there. It’s written in a way that takes you into the heart of this landmark in Kabul and brings you close to the action through regime changes, terrorist attacks and the mundanity of everyday life and the team at The InterContinental Hotel continue to strive for excellence in the most trying circumstances and ensure that life goes on.

One of the biggest challenges in the modern world is the way we dehumanise the people who live through civil war, terrorist attacks and become refugees. Books like this give them names, faces and personalities and perhaps can lead to greater empathy for their plight.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

he Finest Hotel in Kabul is an intriguing history of the Inter-Continental Hotel Kabul as told through the eyes of several people who worked there over the decades. It's fascinating and heart-breaking at the same time. IT's a reflection of the absolute chaos that reigns there as well. BBC journalist Lyse Doucet has written a finely-paced history. It is a bit quirky as she writes about herself in the 3rd person which makes for a strange narrative. I would have preferred that she had written in the 1st person. Still doesn't take away from the narrative. Thank you to #netgalley and #allenlane for the opportunity to preview this book.

[Martin Wilkie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Six stars from me - such a beautiful, careful and human book. Throughout, Lyse Doucet’s lilting voice comes through her gentle literary style, painting the life stories of those living through these pages. The description is of humanity shining through tragedy, hope through pain, and optimism despite multiple set backs. Much for us to consider in our own lives from the example of these resolute people, who retain determination and humour as the world around them presents continual challenge. This is the history of war torn Afghanistan through the eyes of those who work to maintain the Finest Hotel in Kabul. We can only hope that its future will be so much better than its turbulent past.