Kathryn Faulke’s ‘extraordinary’ debut selected for BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week

EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE, the ‘life-affirming and utterly humbling’ (Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller) memoir by care worker Kathryn Faulke has been selected as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week. Published on 24 October by Penguin Fig Tree, this vital and vivid memoir will be serialised on the radio station at 11.45 each day throughout the week, starting on Monday 28 October, with the full series available on BBC Sounds for the next 30 days. The book will be read by Ayesha Antoine, who also narrated Penguin’s audiobook, and was abridged and produced by Jill Waters of the Waters Company for BBC Radio 4.

You can listen or catch up online at BBC Sounds here.

This week Kathryn also featured on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week, where she was invited to discuss the adult social care crisis, and how to fix it, alongside journalist and editor David Goodhart (author of THE CARE DILEMMA), social policy expert Anna Coote, and host Adam Rutherford. You can listen to their discussion on BBC Sounds here – where Adam Rutherford says EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE is ‘full of love and full of warmth’ and Anna Coote adds that ‘Kathryn is the greatest recruitment officer for carers – everyone should read her book.’

After the programme EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE leaped up to Number 40 on Amazon’s ‘Hot New Releases’ list. The Daily Mail also featured an extract from EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE and Kathryn was interviewed by the Guardian about her experiences and writing the book.

Kate – as Kathryn is referred to in EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE – never expected to become a home care worker. But when she left her senior role in the NHS, burnt-out and disheartened, she thought caring for people in their own homes would be a simpler job. Despite being determined not to become too involved with her 'customers', she soon found herself developing firm friendships, forging deep connections and bearing witness to the extraordinary drama to be found in ordinary lives.

With energy, compassion and clarity, her memoir gives an astonishing insight into this unsung – and often maligned – profession, and into the hidden lives of the housebound and infirm. From Beryl who screams like a banshee whenever Kate tries to wash her, but collapses in giggles when her toes are tickled, to bawdy Mr Radbert who 'promised to give me his car when he can remember where he left it'.

EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE is a clear-eyed about the challenges facing the NHS and the care system. But it is above all a celebration of humanity and of the life-changing impact of caring, on those who offer it and those who receive it.

About Kathryn Faulke

Kathryn Faulke was runner-up in the Wasafiri International New Writing Prize in 2020, and in 2021 she won the Mslexia Memoir Prize for an earlier version of her debut, EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE. She has now moved out of London but continues to work in care in the South East of England.

EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE: A Journey into the Heart of Carework is a vivid, moving and unforgettable memoir recounting Kathryn Faulke’s experiences as a careworker in London. It was selected as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and has received widespread praise and media attention.

Praise for EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE

‘A deeply compelling story of one of the most unsung professions, brimming with anecdotes to make you both laugh and cry. A vital book.’ – Anna Bonet, ‘The Best New Books Out in October’, i

‘Marvellously life-affirming and utterly humbling.’ – Caroline Sanderson, Editor’s Choice, The Bookseller

‘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

‘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… a wonderful achievement.’ – Dr Sir David Haslam

‘Kathryn Faulke is an extraordinary person and this is an extraordinary account of what it is to care for others; of the labour of caring, which is both physical and emotional, but also of the joy of caring and the blessing that there is in giving time and attention to others… This book is a compassionate invitation to get up close to the human condition and those who attend to it.’ – Gwen Adshead

‘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

‘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

‘Kathryn is the greatest recruitment officer for carers – everyone should read her book.’ – Anna Coote, Principal Fellow at the New Economics Foundation

‘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

Six Blake Friedmann titles selected as The Bookseller’s Season Highlights

We are delighted to share that a fine array of six Blake Friedmann authors have been picked by The Bookseller in their Spring/Summer Buyers’ Guide Season Highlights. Three of our authors’ titles were selected in the Fiction guide, and a further three in the Non-Fiction guide.

Top Row: GROW WHERE THEY FALL by Michael Donkor (Fig Tree); THEY THOUGHT I WAS DEAD by Peter James (Pan Macmillan); PASSIONTIDE by Monique Roffey (author photo: Marcus Bastel).
Bottom Row: NEWBORN by Kerry Hudson (Chatto & Windus); MY FAMILY MEALS by Grace Mortimer; EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE by Kathryn Faulke (Fig Tree).

The nominated titles in fiction are: GROW WHERE THEY FALL, the stunning second novel by Michael Donkor (Fig Tree, 7 March); the much-anticipated THEY THOUGHT I WAS DEAD: Sandy’s Story by Peter James, which spins off from the bestselling Roy Grace series to uncover the long-speculated mystery of Sandy’s disappearance (Pan Macmillan, 9 May); and PASSIONTIDE, a powerful new Caribbean-set novel by Costa Prize winner Monique Roffey (Harvill Secker, 27 June).

In Non-Fiction, the titles selected are: NEWBORN by Kerry Hudson, her beautiful memoir detailing her experience of building a family without a blueprint to work from (Chatto & Windus, 1 February); EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE, a heartbreaking and uplifting debut memoir by a community care worker (Fig Tree, 11 July); and MY FAMILY MEALS by Grace Mortimer, a fresh collection of simple but delicious five-ingredient recipes (HQ, 18 July).

The Bookseller is the UK’s weekly trade magazine for the publishing industry: their biannual Buyer’s Guides, listing almost every book publishing in the UK, are highly influential catalogues, used by bookshops to select stock they want to order; by the press looking for books to feature and review, and authors to interview; and by other literary enthusiasts who want to know what’s coming out when and what to get excited about.

Congratulations to all of our authors whose upcoming publications have been selected!

Kathryn Faulke’s ‘powerful, moving’ debut EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE won at auction by Fig Tree

After a hotly-contested auction, Helen Garnons-Williams of Fig Tree has acquired Kathryn Faulke’s poignant and timely memoir EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE: A Journey into the Heart of Carework. Isobel Dixon brokered the deal for UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) and Fig Tree, a part of Penguin General, will publish in hardback, ebook and audio in July 2024.

EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE is the first-of-its-kind memoir of a home care worker, told through her encounters with the overlooked and often marginalised people she cares for. It recounts the experiences of Kathryn Faulke, a domiciliary care worker who left a senior role in the NHS, to take up what she thought would be a simpler job of caring for people in their own homes. But despite being determined not to become too involved with her 'customers', she soon found herself developing firm friendships, forging deep connections and bearing witness to the extraordinary drama to be found in ordinary lives.

With energy, compassion and hard-won humour, EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE gives an astonishing insight into this unsung – and often maligned – profession, and into the lives of the housebound and infirm. This beautifully written memoir is clear-eyed about the challenges facing the NHS and the care system, but it is, above all, a celebration of humanity and of the life-changing impact of caring, on those who offer it and those who receive it.

Helen Garnons-Williams, Publishing Director of Fig Tree says ‘We are so proud to welcome Kathryn Faulke to Fig Tree and to be publishing her powerful, beautifully moving account of working at the ‘coalface of human experience’. With warmth and honesty and (unsurprisingly) very great care, she illuminates and celebrates this undervalued profession and the often-disregarded people who depend on it.’

‘I’m thrilled to be working with Fig Tree to bring my early experience as a care worker into the public eye and shine a light on the profession that I have come to love so much,’ says Kathryn Faulke. ‘I would like people to understand not only the challenges but the satisfaction and joy to be found in doing this job that is so often swept under the carpet but is so vital to our communities.’

Isobel Dixon, Kathryn’s agent, says: ‘Kathryn Faulke’s story – and her compassion and humanity in bearing witness to the lives of others – struck right to the heart from the very first page. I knew this powerful and important book would be in the best of hands with Helen and the Fig Tree team and can’t wait for more readers to experience EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE’s particularly human magic.’

About Kathryn Faulke

EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE is Kathryn Faulke's first book. She was runner-up in the Wasafiri International New Writing Prize in 2020, and in 2021 she won the Mslexia Memoir Prize for an earlier version of Every Kind of People. She has now moved out of London but continues to work in care in the South-East of England.