Philippa Perry

Philippa Perry has made a career out of saying the things many people are thinking but haven’t quite found the words for. A psychotherapist, author and agony aunt, she has spent the past two decades helping her readers make better sense of themselves without mysticism or moralising.

She is best known for The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, a quiet phenomenon that became a number one Sunday Times bestseller and has since been translated into more than 40 languages. The book’s appeal lies in its refusal to offer perfection or blame. Perry doesn’t promise to fix families; she asks us to notice patterns, acknowledge feelings and take responsibility for how we relate. That same clear-eyed generosity runs through her other books, including How to Stay Sane, Couch Fiction and The Book You Want Everyone You Love to Read. Her works treat emotional life as something to be understood and lived with more honestly.

For many, Philippa Perry is also a familiar voice from The Observer and The Guardian, where she answers letters from her readers with warmth, wit and an unflinching respect for complexity. Her advice is rarely showy and never sentimental. Instead of rushing to explain it away, she is interested in small, workable shifts like how we listen, how we speak, and how we stay with discomfort. On radio and television, from BBC documentaries to Grayson’s Art Club — the Channel 4 series she made during lockdown with her husband, Grayson Perry; she brings the same sensibility.

Philippa Perry studied fine art, worked as a debt collector and even trained as a McDonald’s manager before volunteering with the Samaritans and retraining as a therapist. Fascinated by the emotional charge of colour and form, she makes and exhibit abstract art alongside her writing and broadcasting.