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Photo: Sim Canetty-Clarke
Wed, 29 May 2019
The Best Hotels for Book Lovers
With shelves brimming with leather-bound first editions and quirky bars serving cocktails inspired by our favourite titles, these hotels are a must for book lovers in search of the perfect literary retreat.
Photo: Sim Canetty-Clarke
The Fife Arms, Scotland
The Fife Arms offers a wonderfully eccentric Highland escape. Once a Victorian coaching inn, the building has been transformed by Hauser & Wirth with a whimsical medley of wry Victoriana and Scottish legend. The hotels is so fantastical that it could be fiction, with features including a self-playing Steinway piano, a cascading model of neon-glass antlers and bagpipe drones. Admire the library and art collection – spanning more than 14,000 pieces and including a Picasso, Lucian Freud and Louise Bourgeois – before curling up in one of the many reading nooks, disturbed only by the tinkling of the piano and the swirling waters of the nearby River Clunie.
- +44 1339 720200
- Go to Website
La Réserve Hotel and Spa, Paris
Just off the Champs-Elysées, La Réserve Paris Hotel and Spa beckons bookworms with its majestic the Duc de Morny Library. Admire the herringbone floors and damask walls, ogle first editions by Voltaire, Balzac and Victor Hugo, and rediscover the pleasures of reading al fresco in the hotel’s sweeping courtyard. Reward your efforts with a trip to the wine cellar to find the perfect accompaniment for your evening read.
- +33 1 58 36 60 60
- Go to Website
Library Hotel, New York
Each floor of the Library Hotel is dedicated to one of the Dewey Decimal System’s ten categories. Enjoying a room laden with books, you could easily spend your trip cuddled up with a good novel looking out over New York Public Library and Madison Avenue from your king-size bed. Luckily, the Writer’s Den bar on the 14th floor provides reason to haul yourself from under the covers, with its sweeping views across the New York skyline and a wide range of literary-inspired cocktails.
- +1 212 983 4500
- Go to Website
Driftwood Hotel, Cornwall
Located down a meandering woodland path amid seven acres of lush fields and greenery, Driftwood Hotel is your gateway to fictional paradise. Opt for long walks along the seafront and explore nearby coastal towns before picking up a book from the hotel library and sinking into a sofa in one of the sitting rooms.
- +44 1872 580644
- Go to Website
Hotel Not Hotel, Amsterdam
Defying expectations, this Hotel Not Hotel subverts presumptions (naturally) through its design and architecture. Offering an exhibition gallery rather than a lobby, it has modish lounges offset by quirky artworks, haphazard decor and a bar named Kevin Bacon. Books are piled in every corner, so borrow one and disappear into your room – if you can find it. While some rooms come in the form of a converted tram or a towering crow’s nest, others are hidden behind bookcases with secret doors and two-way windows.
- +31 20 820 45 38
- Go to Website
The Jefferson, Washington DC
In the US’s storied capital, this charming boutique hotel is an ode to its namesake. Split your time between browsing the countless leather-bound volumes nestled on the deep wooden shelves of the Book Room, and sipping on cocktails at Quill, the hotel’s elegant cocktail bar. In the evening, dine at Michelin-starred restaurant Plume for dishes created with artistic flare.
- +1 202 448 2300
- Go to Website
Photo: Harald Gottschalk
Assouline in the Four Seasons
New York‘s latest installation of famed book brand Assouline can be found inside the Four Seasons hotel. Head to the Upper East Side to browse beautiful tomes on travel, fashion and art bookended by sculptures and curios, before stepping out onto the green plains of Central Park to read your latest purchase in the sun.
- 00 1 212 758 5700
- Go to Website
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