Fifty. And Nobody Warned You
The 50th Birthday Book for Women: a funny gift for turning 50, what fifty years actually cost, and room to write the rest
The same fifty years, read from the other side. Built from the identical fact register as the men's edition and written to a woman rather than about one, with the same last third left deliberately blank.
Not out yet. This page exists so the work is visible while it is being made, which is more honest than a placeholder.
What is in it
- The years you could have been born, and what a house, a week of work and a pound actually cost in each of them.
- What has changed since, with the figures rather than the sighing.
- The honest bits about the age, written by somebody not pretending it is fine.
- Quizzes and things to argue about.
- Things you can now say and get away with.
- Around forty pages to fill in, which is the part that survives.
Formats and price
| Format | Price | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Hardback | £18.99 | The gift version. Survives being kept. |
| Paperback | £12.99 | The one most people buy. |
| Ebook | £4.99 | Read it, but you cannot write in it. |
Where the material came from
The sourced tables in this book are published free on the site. If you only need a line for a card, take it from there and keep your money.
Part of Milestone Birthdays, an Home Truths series.
Frequently asked
- How is the women's edition different from the men's?
- It covers the same fifty years and reads them from a different position. The wage tables carry the pay gap of the period rather than a single average, and the section on what has changed since deals with the jobs, accounts and mortgages a woman born in the mid-1970s could not have had in her own name.
- Is every fact in it sourced?
- Yes, to the same sources as the rest of the series: the Nationwide house price index, the Bank of England historical dataset, the Office for National Statistics, and the Official Charts Company.
- Can you buy it for someone who hates fuss about birthdays?
- That is roughly who it is for. It is not a card with a cake on it. Most of the book is data and blank space, and the funny parts are observational rather than congratulatory.