Tender

A personal and essential guide for the many carers among us.

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'A beautiful and important book that is both deeply engaging and usefully practical. I loved it.' CATHY RENTZENBRINK

'An insightful and well-timed book ... forces us to confront the stereotypes - and prejudices - we hold.' SUNDAY TIMES

'profoundly important...full of wisdom and bright insights on what it really means to love someone, by a fearless and generous writer. ' CLOVER STROUD

'A beautiful and timely reminder that each and every one of us has the ability to care, the capacity for empathy, and the potential to grow.' ANDY PUDDICOMBE, FOUNDER OF HEADSPACE

'A wonderful book: compassionate, honest, carefully-reasoned and genuinely helpful... This will benefit many people.' KATHERINE MAY, author of WINTERING

'An invaluable tool for any invisible carers or anyone who wants to learn how to better support their loved ones... we ALL have many, many things to learn from Penny's beautiful, wise, charming, thoughtful words' SCARLETT CURTIS, Sunday Times bestselling author

'Moving and beautifully written, nuanced and wise, alert to every paradox at the heart of love. A hugely important book not only for current or future carers, but anyone learning to accept that life tends to resist our control.' OLIVIA SUDJIC, author of EXPOSURE

'Tender captures the powerful capacity of people to care for others, and all the heartbreaking and heartwarming complexity that this involves. Penny brings the crucial, yet often overlooked, role of caring into our collective consciousness and, in doing so, demonstrates what it means to be human.' -DR EMMA HEPBURN, author of A TOOLKIT FOR MODERN LIFE

'Penny Wincer's TENDER manages to combine both unromanticised honesty about the realities of care with a genuine uplifting hopefulness... is a must-read.' RUTH WHIPPMAN, author of THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

We are all likely - at some point in our lives - to face the prospect of caring for another, whether it's a parent, child or partner. It is estimated that there are 7 million people in the UK caring for loved ones. And yet these are the unpaid, unsung people whose number is rising all the time.

In Tender: the imperfect art of caring, Penny Wincer combines her own experiences as a carer with the experiences of others to offer real and transformative tools and insights for navigating a situation that many of us are either facing or will face at some time.

Penny Wincer has twice been a carer: first to her mother, and now as a single parent to her autistic son. Tender shows how looking after oneself is a fundamental part of caring for another, and describes the qualities that we can look to cultivate in ourselves through what may otherwise feel to be an exhausting task.

Weaving her lived experience with research into resilience, perfectionism and self-compassion, Penny combines the stories of other carers alongside those who receive support - offering an often surprising and hopeful perspective.

Penny hosts a podcast Not Too Busy To Write.