- Published: 7 September 2025
- ISBN: 9780241672495
- Imprint: Penguin General UK
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 304
- RRP: $24.99
Every Kind of People
A journey into the heart of care work

















- Published: 7 September 2025
- ISBN: 9780241672495
- Imprint: Penguin General UK
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 304
- RRP: $24.99
This is an extraordinary and important book that will make you laugh, cry, admire and despair in equal measure. Beautifully written, it is both heart-warming and inspiring, but also left me with deep anger and puzzlement that care work can be so demeaned as "low skill" by our political leaders. How can a decent society so undervalue such difficult, challenging, and important work? Every Kind of People is a wonderful achievement
David Haslam
An extraordinary account of what it is to care for others, both beautiful and painful to read. This book is a compassionate invitation to get up close to the human condition and those who attend to it
Dr Gwen Adshead, author of The Devil You Know
Every Kind of People is not just essential reading for anyone curious about the realities of care work in this country; it’s also the work of a natural storyteller, and a book full of empathy, humour, and - yes - care. All kinds of brilliant
Jon McGregor, author of Lean Fall Stand
Marvellously life-affirming and utterly humbling
Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller, Editor's Choice
This is a fantastic and important book. It reads like a novel, complete with vivid characters, humour and tragedy. Above all, it is an insight into the hidden life of a care worker. I was lost in admiration
Tom Shakespeare
I am in love with Kate's storytelling, her ability to see the person and her fabulous, dry humour. This is a book about caring, and it's also a book about being in love with humanity
Kathryn Mannix, author of With the End in Mind
In a first of its kind, here is a memoir of a home care worker: a deeply compelling story of one of the most unsung professions in the UK, brimming with anecdotes to make you both laugh and cry. A vital book
inews, The Best New Books to Read in October
Affecting and memorable ... An extraordinary book ... As a polemic, it should be required reading for any politician in the Department of Health and Social Care
Times Literary Supplement
What comes through most in the book is the privilege of intimacy that comes from caring, the close relationships and love
Guardian
Every Kind of People talks about what it’s actually like to be a carer: it’s full of love and full of warmth.
Adam Rutherford
Written with compassion, candour, and often hilarity
Radio Times
A riveting book that treats elderly, infirm and irritable people as the lively and extraordinary human beings they really are. Kathryn Faulke is a shining example to us all, though she’s self-deprecating and touchingly hard on herself. Every Kind of People is truly heart-warming and will be in pride of place on my bookshelf of very special books
Jacqueline Wilson
Every Kind of People reminds us that wonderful kindness and comedy and compassion abound in the care sector, the bourne to which so many of us are destined and for which so few are prepared
Reverend Richard Coles
Exceptional ... Beyond being a vivid and consistently engaging memoir, it delivers a powerful lesson in humanity that needs to be shared
Margaret Busby