Women and Books Discussing The Barbizon by Paulina Bren

In-Person and Virtual Program

Join the book club for a hybrid (in-person and online) discussion of The Barbizon by Paulina Bren. For adults.

This is a hybrid event and will be hosted in-person in the Community Meeting Room at West Hollywood Library as well as on Zoom. Please register at the link below to receive the link to the meeting via email.

https://library-lacounty-gov.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrce2srDouH9aTyu_GZqZsrFCiAOBmnVz3

Co-sponsored by the City of West Hollywood Women's Advisory Board, Women and Books Book Club meets on the first Tuesday of the month to discuss literary works by and focused on women.

Please contact the library to borrow a print copy of the book. eBook and eAudiobook are available through Libby app/OverDrive.

Summary provided by the publisher:

Welcome to New York’s legendary hotel for women, the Barbizon.

Liberated after WWI from home and hearth, women flocked to New York City during the Roaring Twenties. But even as women’s residential hotels became the fashion, the Barbizon stood out; it was designed for young women with artistic aspirations and included soaring art studios and soundproofed practice rooms. More importantly still, with no men allowed beyond the lobby, the Barbizon signaled respectability, a place where a young woman of a certain class could feel at home. But as the stock market crashed and the Great Depression set in, the clientele changed, though women’s ambitions did not; the Barbizon Hotel became the go-to destination for any young American woman with a dream to be something more.

The first ever history of this extraordinary hotel, and of the women who arrived in New York City alone from "elsewhere" with a suitcase and a dream, The Barbizon offers readers a multilayered history of New York City in the 20th century, and of the generations of American women torn between their desire for independence and their looming social expiration date. By providing women a room of their own, the Barbizon was the hotel that set them free.

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