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Tags: Hotel Bookshelves / Libraries / Doubletree Hotels / Chicago Hotels / → All Tags

theWit's Library Gets People Talking, More Than Reading

Where: 201 N. State St. [map], Chicago, IL, United States, 60601

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.

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Tags: Hotel Bookshelves / Libraries / Wales / England Hotels / → All Tags

Booking a Night With a Bunch of Books

Where: Church Lane, Hawarden, Flintshire, United Kingdom, CH5 3DF

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.

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