Why are middle-aged women invisible on book covers?

That’s a really good question raised today by Alison Flood over at The Guardian:

“It seems the book world doesn’t think readers want to see women of a certain age on their novels – even if that is precisely what the books are about.”

Flood cites a number of books — Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, How Hard Can It Be?, and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood — that feature older women as main characters … yet refuse to put their faces on the cover.

Read the full piece on The Guardian's website.