Is This Working?

The Jobs We Do, Told by the People Who Do Them

Charlie Colenutt

$46.99

Hardback

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English

Picador
10 June 2025

Social & cultural history; Social groups; Sociology: work & labour; Personnel & human resources management; Working patterns & practices

Charlie Colenutt's intense and revealing interviews capture the raw voices of people talking honestly about work . . . Read this, as each one opens a hidden window on the way we live now.' - Polly Toynbee

For the best part of two years Charlie Colenutt travelled the country to talk to a hundred strangers, from all walks of life about their jobs: What did they do for a living? Why did they do it? Did they like it?

They met in coffee shops, chain pubs or front rooms. He met the church minister who, maddened by his email inbox, has come to feel more like an administrator than a spiritual leader. He found out the number of birds killed a day in a poultry factory, the order in which patients are woken up in care homes, and the reasons why you shouldn't smile when you are shown your bonus in an investment bank.

Together, the voices in Is This Working? tell a story about the one thing that most British adults have in common - work.

By: Charlie Colenutt
Imprint: Picador
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 242mm, Width: 165mm, Spine: 36mm
Weight: 618g
ISBN: 9781035015047
ISBN 10: 1035015048
Pages: 400
Publication Date: 10 June 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Charlie Colenutt studied history at the University of Oxford, where he won the Gibbs Prize. After his undergraduate studies, he stayed in Oxford as the Amelia Jackson scholar, completing a postgraduate degree on the history of the United States. He then had a brief turn as a commercial barrister, before leaving law to work as a writer. He lives on a hill near High Wycombe.

Reviews for Is This Working?: The Jobs We Do, Told by the People Who Do Them

Colenutt’s intense and revealing interviews capture the raw voices of people talking honestly about work, high and low, fulfilling and crushing. Read this, as each one opens a hidden window on the way we live now. -- Polly Toynbee