EXCLUSIVE offer for The Book Room shoppers
Today, I’m really excited to be sharing with you an exclusive to The Book Room.
You may remember, last week in my round up, I included news of a newly published book by Victoria Smith called HAGS: THE DEMONISATION OF MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN.
I had been waiting for this book for months, because, as a self-confessed hag myself, I have skin in the game, plus, more generally, I really like Victoria Smith’s sharp and intelligent writing and her columns in The Critic. I finished reading HAGS the day after publication. It is that good.
So imagine my delight last week when I was contacted by the publishers, Little, Brown, and asked if The Book Room would like an exclusive – the chance to offer shoppers a free HAG badge with every purchase.
That’s right, you can only get your HAG badge here. Of all the bookshops in all the towns, the publishers decided to come to mine.
I had spotted Smith’s agent tweeting about these badges a couple of weeks ago, and I’d seen how many women had asked where they could get theirs.
And, well, now you know, The Book Room.
Here’s a reminder of what the critics have been saying about HAGS:
Rachel Cooke writing in The Observer described how it “brilliantly and unrelentingly exposes all the weasel ways in which ageist misogyny enables regressive beliefs to be recast as progressive… a future classic, up there wth Joan Smith’s Misogynies and Susan Faludi’s Backlash.”
Mariella Frostrop writing in The Guardian said: ‘As Victoria Smith writes “having spent half your life being told you might cease to exist the moment your ‘value’ drops, you find that, actually, you are as real as you ever were.”’
Liz Jones insisted “every woman over 45 should read this book. It’s highbrow but very funny.”
To be honest, women under 45 should read it too, whether to find out what they have in store ‘the other side of the hill’ or, to vow to themselves to keep receiving wise counsel from those hags that come before them. Perhaps, the book argues in parts, it is younger women who unwittingly side with the patriarchy as if it might give them some assurance that they won’t turn out to be one of those invisible over-45s, but guess what, that’s an insurance policy that will never pay dividends.
As Janice Turner said reviewing the book in The Times: “This eloquent, clever and devastating book describes the last remaining acceptable prejudice, one that is now even posited as progress: the loathing of older women. I wish younger feminists would read it too because the dumbest thing about joining a witch-hunt is you’re only burning your future self.”
HAGS is not a story of poor me, it is a clarion call to arms, a celebration of our wisdom, our experience and yes, the lines we have to prove it.
I loved it, I hope you will too. Hurry to order though, I only have a limited number of these exclusive HAG badges available, so it’s first come, first served, but read this book and you will remember to wear your badge with pride.
• Thank you to all who have been ordering from my online bookshop in the last week. Remember you can still support THE BOOK ROOM while I am waiting to open my physical store again by shopping online, in fact now I would appreciate the support more than ever. I can order ANY BOOK for you and you will receive it within 48 hours. It has never been a more important time to support both writers and independents bookshops, and by buying from me, you are doing both and contributing to a vital ecosystem.