About

The Barbizon is available on bookshop.org and amazon.com.

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

Amazon Editor’s Pick “Best History”

U.K. Hatchards’ Bookstore Featured Book of the Month for April 2021

#3 on Forbes’ “12 Must-Read Nonfiction Books”

LitHub’s “Best Reviewed Books of the Month”

Stylist Magazine’s “The Style List: Thirty Things We’re Lusting After…”

NY Strand Bookstore’s “Nancy’s Pick”

Christian Science Monitor’s “10 Best Books for March 2021”

REVIEWS

“More than a biography of a building, the book is an absorbing history of labor and women’s rights in one of the country’s largest cities, and also of the places that those women left behind to chase their dreams.” ― The New Yorker

“A captivating history... Bren’s book is really about the changing cultural perceptions of women’s ambition throughout the last century, set against the backdrop of that most famous theater of aspiration, New York City... Bren draws on an impressive amount of archival research, and pays tender attention to each of the women she profiles.” — The New York Times Book Review

“Among the handful of iconic hotels closely entwined with New York’s cultural history, the Barbizon is perhaps less widely known than the Plaza, Algonquin or Waldorf Astoria. But as Paulina Bren’s beguiling new book makes clear, its place in the city’s storied past is no less deserving...In this captivating portrait, the hotel comes alive again as an enchanted site of a bygone era.” ― The Wall Street Journal

“‘The Barbizon’ is a story as much about 20th-century women seizing agency, in fits and starts, as it is about a hotel, and Bren tells it skillfully.” — The Washington Post

“The first history of the hotel and the ambitious women who stayed there...poignant and intriguing.” ― The New Republic

“entertaining history” — The Sunday Times (UK)

“Bren elegantly weaves interviews with former residents and archival research with context on the social and political conditions that limited midcentury women.” ― Fortune

“delightful”! — New York Post

“While Bren’s book is packed with juicy midcentury gossip, it’s also full of lesser-known characters who light up the pages...It all serves as a potent reminder of how important a little space can be in the quest for freedom.” ― Bust

“Varying delectably in cadence, from high-heel tapping and typewriter clacking to sinuous and reflective passages analyzing the complex forms of adversity Barbizon women faced over the decades, Bren’s engrossing and illuminating inquiry portrays the original Barbizon as a vital microcosm of the long quest for women's equality.” — Booklist (Starred)

“fascinating” — Daily Mail UK

“enough smouldering glamour to make Mad Men look dreary” — The Guardian's Observer (UK)

“A rare glimpse behind the doors of New York’s famous women-only residential hotel...Drawing on extensive research, extant letters, and numerous interviews, Bren beautifully weaves together the political climate of the times and the illuminating personal stories of the Barbizon residents...Elegant prose brings a rich cultural history alive.” — KIRKUS

“An entertaining and enlightening account of New York’s Barbizon Hotel and the role it played in fostering women’s ambitions in 20th-century America...Carefully researched yet breezily written, this appealing history gives the Barbizon its rightful turn in the spotlight.”― PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“Bren elegantly weaves interviews with former residents and archival research with context on the social and political conditions that limited midcentury women.” — Christian Science Monitor

“[An] insightful, well-written account...[Bren] details the lives of some of the Barbizon’s most well-known residents, including Molly Brown, Grace Kelly, Sylvia Plath, and Joan Didion, and provides historical context about midcentury single women, careers, and sex...A must read for anyone interested in the history of 20th-century women’s lives, fashion, publishing, and New York.” — LIBRARY JOURNAL (Starred)

“fascinating and little-known history” — The Telegraph

“the story of American women in the 20th century”— The Economist

“A pleasurable, fascinating read that is superbly researched and told.” — The Sydney Morning Herald