I am guilty myself of downplaying my role as a nurse, when I hold a position of great education and responsibility and I work hard to provide good care for every one I come into contact with.

Nevertheless, the overwhelming significance of Labours of Love is the compelling passion Bunting brings to her case for confronting our careless world.We do our best to select used books that are in fantastic condition, however there may be some defects on the cover or pages. Bunting argues that ‘care is the feminist issue’ (3) because its burdens fall unevenly on (some) women. Rising rates of female labour market participation increase the need for non-household forms of care, but in an era of austerity this is a recipe for crisis. Very academic, Bunting looks at several different elements of care from historical and legislative perspectives, bringing into stark light the abysmal support that this area of society receives. It asks important questions about the deficit of care in our society, to which there are no easy answers.

No missing or damaged pages, no tears, possible very minimal creasing, no underlining or highlighting of text, and no writing in the margins. See our Remarkables Archive list for what is no longer in print, but which we are happy to track down. The result, Bunting argues, is that the complexity of care work (it’s emotional, unpredictable and communicative aspects) are flattened into a deterministic, static set of tasks that are to be optimally delivered to meet the consumer’s (recipient’s) desires.

In the process, Bunting highlights the overwhelming impediments faced at every level by carers and those in need, resulting in an unprecedented crisis of care.

It made me think about things about my life (and death) that I have never thought about and it made me feel things that I didn’t think were possible and more importantly it paints a picture of a crumbling system and the millions of lives that depend on it. Helena Fraser Rowe is a PPE graduate from Goldsmiths University of London, specialising in the position of disabled women in contemporary Britain. Unusually, I have given two copies as gifts as I think the title / cover and jacket do not do it justice.

Though they are frequently worn out from the Sisyphean labour of “rolling back anguish”, the care workers she speaks to remain endlessly curious about their patients or clients, wanting to hear life stories. Humane, perceptive, honest, compassionate, wide-ranging, and erudite, it is a profound inquiry into the most important social issue of our time. Deemed purely intuitive, relational and routine, it is frequently devalued by medicine’s emphasis on the rational or scientific. I particularly enjoyed the section at the end of each chapter, where Bunting explores our changing understanding of the word “care” by offering definitions of associated words and examining their historical context.