The lobby of theWit buzzes with businessmen chatting, workers scurrying about and people wandering in and out, but head to the second floor of the hotel and you'll find some peace in the library.

But it's not a library per se. Yes, the table in the middle of the room has small stacks of oversized coffee-table books on everything from fashion to architecture to music that you can peruse. (The most popular one among library visitors is Frank Lloyd Wright Complete Works, Vol. 3: 1943-1959.) But it's more about the atmosphere. ]]> Jennifer Kester 2009-11-04T09:08:47-05:00 http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2009/10/8/105147/679

Plenty of hotels are pushing books onto guests these days, adding in-room libraries, Kindles or Sony eReaders to their list of amenities. We’re quite fond of reading by the fire or the pool at hotels but book club events, which are also on the rise, sound a little, well, earnest. Unless, of course, wine is involved.

Perhaps that’s why Miami’s Epic Hotel was smart enough to combine their ongoing literary series with their daily guest wine-hour program—and special room rates that make hitting the books totally worth it.

We’ve been following the hotel bookshelves trend for awhile now, but we’ve only just stumbled across what may be the pièce de résistance of hotel libraries (and, no, it’s not New York’s Library Hotel.)

Forget hipster-curated lobby and guestroom collections—over in Wales, you can stay in an honest-to-God actual library (and we don’t mean taking a catnap behind the stacks at your local branch).

St Deiniol’s—Britain’s only residential library—was created by book nerd William Ewart Gladstone in the town of Hawarden, in North East Wales. It’s been around since 1898 and looks fittingly Victorian and scholarly-like.