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The Witches Are Coming

Contributors

By Lindy West

Read by Lindy West

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Price

$24.98

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around November 5, 2019. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

In this wickedly funny cultural critique, the author of the critically acclaimed memoir and Hulu series Shrill exposes misogyny in the #MeToo era.

This is a witch hunt. We’re witches, and we’re hunting you.

From the moment powerful men started falling to the #MeToo movement, the lamentations began: this is feminism gone too far, this is injustice, this is a witch hunt. In The Witches Are Coming, firebrand author of the New York Times bestselling memoir and now critically acclaimed Hulu TV series Shrill, Lindy West, turns that refrain on its head. You think this is a witch hunt? Fine. You’ve got one.

In a laugh-out-loud, incisive cultural critique, West extolls the world-changing magic of truth, urging readers to reckon with dark lies in the heart of the American mythos, and unpacking the complicated, and sometimes tragic, politics of not being a white man in the twenty-first century. She tracks the misogyny and propaganda hidden (or not so hidden) in the media she and her peers devoured growing up, a buffet of distortions, delusions, prejudice, and outright bullsh*t that has allowed white male mediocrity to maintain a death grip on American culture and politics-and that delivered us to this precarious, disorienting moment in history.

West writes, “We were just a hair’s breadth from electing America’s first female president to succeed America’s first black president. We weren’t done, but we were doing it. And then, true to form—like the Balrog’s whip catching Gandalf by his little gray bootie, like the husband in a Lifetime movie hissing, ‘If I can’t have you, no one can’—white American voters shoved an incompetent, racist con man into the White House.”

We cannot understand how we got here‚—how the land of the free became Trump’s America—without examining the chasm between who we are and who we think we are, without fact-checking the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and each other. The truth can transform us; there is witchcraft in it. Lindy West turns on the light.

  • Amazon, "Best Books of the Month in Nonfiction"
    E! News, "The Best New Books of November 2019!"
    Esquire, "Best Nonfiction Books of 2019"

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  • MOMTASTIC, "Best Books to Pick Up This Holiday Season"
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    BUST Magazine, "6 New Books Perfect for the Coldest Winter Months"
  • "Shrill author Lindy West's latest essay collection is a thoughtful and funny examination of rape culture in media. Some of the topics she tackles: Adam Sandler, Donald Trump, South Park, 'reverse sexism,' and classic movies like Sixteen Candles that make rape look like 'silly fun.'
    Bustle
  • "Equal parts hilarious and sobering, West's words will help fellow witches articulate why they are so fired up (YES!)."
    Booklist
  • "In this time of great frustration, this collection is a clearing in the woods to meet, to reflect, to dance, and to cackle around the fire."
    Abbi Jacobson, creator of Broad City and New York Times bestselling author of I Might Regret This
  • "Lindy continues to be one of the funniest, smartest writers around."
    Jessica Valenti, New York Times bestselling author of Full Frontal Feminism and Sex Object
  • "GET ME A BROOM."
    -Samantha Irby, New York Times bestselling author of We're Never Meeting in Real Life
  • "One of our foremost thinkers on gender unveils her unifying theory of America: that our steady diet of pop culture created by and for embittered, entitled white men has stoked our sociopolitical moment. Adam Sandler, South Park, and Pepe the Frog all come under West's withering scrutiny in this funny, hyper-literate analysis of the link between meme culture and male mediocrity."
    Esquire.com
  • "A biting and profoundly funny social and political critique of rape culture, toxic masculinity, and misogyny."
    Library Journal
  • "Cultural critic (Lindy) West focuses her keen eye and sardonic sense of humor on, among other topics, misogyny in the Trumpian political landscape..."
    Publishers Weekly
  • "A cornucopia of shrewd cultural observations... [West's] sharp wit and no-nonsense sense of humor also shines through... [West] drives home the critical issues of our time while taking time to tickle our funny bones. Satirical, raw, and unapologetically real, West delivers the bittersweet truths on contemporary living."
    Kirkus Reviews
  • "A thoughtful and funny examination of rape culture in media."
    Bustle
  • "With her signature wit, brio, and laser-like clarity of vision, one of our foremost thinkers on gender unveils her unifying theory of America: that our steady diet of pop culture created by and for embittered, entitled white men has stoked our sociopolitical moment. Adam Sandler, South Park, and Pepe the Frog all come under West's withering scrutiny in this funny, hyper-literate analysis of the link between meme culture and male mediocrity."
    Esquire
  • "The book made me simultaneously laugh out loud and want to pull my hair out. West's snappy writing is funny but full of anger, and I felt myself instantly sucked in."
    Steph Coelho, Book Riot
  • "Lindy West brought us to tears (through laughing, mostly) with Shrill: Notes From A Loud Woman, a razor-sharp memoir about toxic misogyny and fat shaming that went on to inspire the fantastic Hulu series. West is back and funny as ever in her forthcoming non-fiction book, The Witches Are Coming, a cultural critique of American culture, the #MeToo movement and what it means to not be a mediocre white man - in a society that so often protects and promotes him."
    NBC News
  • "The Witches Are Coming is Lindy West's follow-up to her wonderful, best-selling book Shrill. She's back with more of her incisive cultural critiques, writing essays on feminism and the misogyny that is (still) embedded in every part of our culture. She brings humor, wit, and much-needed clarity to the gender dynamics at play in media and culture."
    Book Riot
  • "[This book] highlights one of West's greatest gifts, beyond her voice and humor--her ability to shine clarifying light on the dark, knotted bits of culture without divesting herself of that culture completely."
    Seattle Met
  • "From Facebook to Goop, cancel culture to climate change, the essays here add West's discerning and quick-witted voice to the conversation about what social and environmental justice looks like, and what it can look like in the future. So if you need a little magic in your Halloween reading, pick this one up."
    LitHub
  • "West's unique perspectives on racism, sexism, climate change, and more are so necessary, and this collection is a call to action that can't be ignored."
    BookRiot
  • "A fiery book from an admirable author."
    Morgan Jerkins, New York Times Book Review
  • "Only Lindy West, one of our foremost thinkers on gender, could capture the agony and the ecstasy of 21st century life in one slim volume... In these 17 stellar essays, West crafts a blistering indictment of the systems that oppress us--the government that denies our rights, the media that denies our stories, the society that denies our dignity. Yet even so, West's work is always threaded through with hope--an unshakable belief that we can and will triumph over the forces that seek to break us. Coupled with her laser-focused cultural criticism, what emerges is a portrait of hope amid the uncertainty."
    Esquire
  • "The Witches are Coming is simultaneously whip smart, infuriating, a call to action and, of course, laugh-out-loud funny."
    Huffington Post
  • "When I have a hard time making sense of and finding the words to describe the complexities of women's issues, I turn to Lindy West. There's something about her sharp, steady, and ferociously funny writing that re-centers and refocuses my mind on what's in front of me and why it matters. West has a gift for packaging the truth into easily digestible sentences. And her latest collection of essays, The Witches Are Coming is no different... The next time you're feeling lost or can't find the words to describe why you're angry about a particular topic, pick up The Witches Are Coming. Lindy will lead the way."
    Hello Giggles
  • "As a girl, Lindy West obsessed about pop culture. As a critic and columnist, she analyzed it. Now she's creating it... In her wise, witty new collection of essays, The Witches Are Coming...West blasts the misogyny lurking in the media we love."
    Star Tribune
  • "Searingly smart... [with an] overarching tone of swashbuckling courage: West knows what she wants to say, and she really doesn't care what you think... a stirring manifesto for honesty... and an exhortation to give a damn."
    LA Times
  • "[A] hilarious, astute essay collection chock full of her signature wit and personal anecdotes."
    BUST Magazine

On Sale
Nov 5, 2019
Publisher
Hachette Audio
ISBN-13
9781549141591

Lindy West

About the Author

Lindy West is an opinion writer for the New York Times. She is the author of the bestselling memoir Shrill, and executive producer of the acclaimed Hulu adaptation starring Aidy Bryant. She lives in Seattle.

Learn more about this author