DSM Book Club

We think the best part of finishing a good book is talking about it with friends. That’s why we’ve started the DSM Book Club. 

The DSM Book Club is a new online sharing session designed to showcase our favorite reads and get you ready to meet the authors at our March Festival. This Club will inspire you with a monthly pick and features an online Zoom book discussion. Each month will feature one book that is connected to The Festival and an individual registration for participation. We hope you will join us every month, but there’s no guilt if you miss one.

Participation in the DSM Book Club is FREE thanks to our sponsors.

Sept. 2021: "City of Girls" by Elizabeth Gilbert

Club Meeting: Sept. 30 at 7 p.m.  |  Register Now

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), “City of Girls” explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.

In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and a no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in a professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves – and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.

Now eighty-nine years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life – and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time," she muses. "After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is." Written with powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.

About the Author

Elizabeth Gilbert is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of “Eat, Pray, Love”, as well as the short story collection, “Pilgrims.” Her journalism has been published in Harper's Bazaar, Spin, and The New York Times, and her stories have appeared in Esquire, Story, and The Paris Review.