Leave it to a Hollywood heavy hitter to find some of the swankiest digs in London Town, even when she's not staying there herself. Just in time for the London Book Fair, Reese's Book Club has set up shop in the Sheraton Grand London Park Lane, a five-star Art Deco hotel across Green Park from Buckingham Palace, where a new pop-up library and bookstore, Reese’s Book Club x Sheraton Lobby Library, has been installed.
The Lobby Library is the third in a series coproduced by Hello Sunshine, the production company founded by Reese Witherspoon and parent company of Reese's Book Club, and Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, as part of its Gatherings by Sheraton events program. Following installations at Sheraton Grand Los Angeles last October and November and the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel this January and February, the pop-up will run in London through April 6, hosting a number of public events, including readings by such authors as Lucy Foley. It debuted on March 7, at a private event featuring a conversation between authors Bolu Babalola and Jojo Moyes, both of whom have had titles selected by Witherspoon for her book club.
For the Reese's Book Club team, the pop-up presented an opportunity to share the books chosen as Reese's Book Club picks in a physical space. The titles are stocked in a space made to look like a chic, book-themed living room, with a "chandelier" made of giant bookmarks and bookshelves with sides designed to look like the fore edge of a closed book. "I was really important for us that this space felt very cozy, like somewhere you would want to read and have a coffee," Jane Lee, the brand director for Reese's Book Club, said.
Kristin Perla, senior v-p for growth marketing and co-marketing partnerships at Hello Sunshine, noted that visitors could purchase the books from the pop-up should they want to keep reading after leaving the hotel. Lee added that, because there is "so much foot traffic in and out of hotels," the pop-ups provide a unique opportunity for Reese's Book Club, which does not own a bricks-and-mortar bookstore, to get authors whose books it picks in-person exposure.
Because each of the hotels to host the Lobby Library has had a unique interior, getting the same setup installed in multiple locations involved some finesse even beyond simply moving books and furniture, said Kevin Gusinde, an event producer on the brand consulting team at Creative Artists Agency, which was involved in producing the pop-up. Initially, he said, his team knew they had to make the installation work with the lobby at the Sheraton Grand Los Angeles, but that they weren't sure to which other Sheraton properties the pop-up would go next. That meant, in the case of the Park Lane space, adjusting "the chandelier specifically," Gusinde said. "Here, you're only seeing half of it—we had to change it up, because the ceilings are so low, when we were working with 35-foot ceilings before."
Gusinde and his team's adjustments worked well enough to impress Justin Pinchbeck, the general manager at the Sheraton Park Lane.
"The layout has given us a little inspiration," he said. "We're adding some additional furniture here later this year, and this has given us a little insight into how that can look and feel."
