Most Popular Books by James Graham

This House explores Westminster and the 1974 hung parliament through a combination of dialogue, comedy and political comment; and historical and contemporary concerns.

I want to tell you a story. And it''s true. That''s what makes it a good fucking story, right, ''cause all the best stories are true. Fleet Street. 1969. The Sun rises. James Graham''s ruthless, red-topped play leads with the birth of this country''s most influential newspaper – when a young and rebellious Rupert Murdoch asked the impossible and launched its first editor''s quest, against all odds, to give the people what they want. Ink premiered at the Almeida Theatre in London before transferring to the West End and later Broadway. It was nominated for both the Olivier and Tony Award for Best New Play. This new edition features an introduction by Harry Derbyshire.

"This is my first tax return. Thank you...erm for offering to... for helping. I realise it''s a bit weird. It''s just. This is...it''s the only way I can think to make it better. The only way I can think to do it. With other people. Like this." Tax is really, really taxing for Ben Edwards. Self-employed. And afraid... And now he must face his dreaded self assessment form, with every receipt evoking the good times and the bad - memories of things gone wrong, gone right, the journeys he''s been on, the relationships that have begun and ended and the people he has lost. As Ben begins to stitch together the patchwork quilt that was the Tax Year 2009/2010, he relives a year that was both hilarious and tragic, all mixed up in one shoe box of receipts. Award-winning playwright James Graham presents an affectionate and funny portrait of one man''s year-long experience, pieced together from receipts, shopping and commercial transactions. With a web of narratives, the play''s structure is innovative and flexible. In performance, each receipt triggers a unique story and the actor plucks the receipts from the audience''s hands at random.

Winner of Best New Play at the Olivier Awards 2024 It''s time to change the game. The country that gave the world football has since delivered a painful pattern of loss. Why can''t England''s men win at their own game? The team has the worst track record for penalties in the world and manager Gareth Southgate knows he needs to open his mind and face up to the years of hurt to take team and country back to the promised land. James Graham''s ''rousing new play'' (Tatler) is a fast-moving portrayal of Gareth Southgate''s reign as England football manager that presents a gripping examination of both nation and game. Uplifting, funny and more entertaining than a World Cup final. This edition was published to coincide with the West End transfer of Dear England in October 2023, following its world premiere at the National Theatre in June 2023.

Winner of the 2022 Critics'' Circle Award for Best New Play Nominated for the 2022 Olivier Award for Best New Play “A man should never turn down two things. Sex, and appearing on television." 1968 – a year of protest that divided America. As two men fight to become the next President, all eyes are on the battle between two others: the cunningly conservative William F. Buckley Jr., and the iconoclastic liberal Gore Vidal. Beliefs are challenged and slurs slung as these political idols feud nightly in a new television format, debating the moral landscape of a shattered nation. Little do they know they''re about to open up a new frontier in American politics, and transform television news forever... Best of Enemies is the electric new play by James Graham (Quiz, Labour of Love), directed by Jeremy Herrin, inspired by the documentary by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon. This revised and updated edition was published to coincide with the West End transfer to the Noel Coward Theatre in November 2022.

This collection brings together four of Graham''s most successful and entertaining plays, each representing a relationship with a theatre with which he has worked and introduced by the author. One of the plays, Sons of York, has never before been published, but earned James Graham a nomination for the Empty Space Mark Marvin Award. A History of Falling Things is a gentle love story about a young man and woman forced to confront their fears of the outside world and discover what really matters to their lives. Tory Boyz is a fast-paced, political comedy about prejudice and ambition in Westminster, looking at homosexuality in the British Conservative party, both today and in the past. As Ben, self-employed, skint and emotionally vulnerable, begins to stitch together the patchwork quilt that was the Tax Year 2009/2010, he relives a year that was both hilarious and tragic, all mixed up in one shoe box of receipts. The Man is an affectionate and funny portrait of an individual''s year-long experience, pieced together from receipts, shopping and commercial transactions. The Whisky Taster is a contemporary, subtle and witty exploration of feeling and perception in the modern world of advertising, and about seeing things too clearly in a city that never stands still. Sons of York Described as ''undoubtedly one of the best new plays of the year'' (British Theatre Guide), Sons of York depicts three generations of the same family moving in together in Hull as the Winter of Discontent of 1978 builds up.

I have to believe in the institutions we trust to be fair, and functional. Whether that be the judiciary, the police, the media ... That they should all be able to resist the temptations of a more entertaining lie, over a less extraordinary truth. April 2003. Army Major Charles Ingram, his wife and coughing accomplice are convicted for cheating on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The evidence is damning. The nation is gripped by the sheer audacity of the plot to snatch the £1,000,000 jackpot. But was he really guilty? It''s time for you to decide. Question everything you think you know in James Graham''s provocative new play. Olivier Award-nominee James Graham returns with a sharp, fictional imagination of one of the most famous quiz show controversies to date. The production premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre and this edition was published this edition was published to coincide with the West End opening at the Nöel Coward Theatre in April 2018.

Gizza job. Go on, gizzit, go ''head, giz it if you''ve got it, giz it, I can do it. Giz it then. Go ''head, gizza job. 80s'' Liverpool. Chrissie, Loggo, George, Dixie and Yosser are used to hard work and providing for their families. But there is no work and there is no money. What are they supposed to do? Work harder, work longer, buy cheaper, spend less? They just need a chance. Life is tough but the lads can play the game. Find the jobs, avoid the ''sniffers'' and see if you can have a laugh along the way. 40 years after Alan Bleasdale''s ground-breaking television series of the same name was essential viewing, this edition is published to coincide with the co-production between the Liverpool Royal Court and London''s National Theatre, in April 2024.

Labour MP David Lyons cares about modernisation and "electability"... his constituency agent, Jean Whittaker cares about principles and her community. Set away from the Westminster bubble in the party''s traditional northern heartlands, this is a clash of philosophy, culture and class against the backdrop of the Labour Party over 25 years, as it moves from Kinnock through Blair into Corbyn... and beyond? This razor-sharp political comedy from James Graham was produced by Michael Grandage Company and Headlong and received its world Premiere at the Noël Coward Theatre in September 2017.

The Vikings dominated Western Europe from the 9th to the 11th centuries. In this account of the Viking world, every aspect of Viking life is examined. Important chapters on ships, runes and religion have been contributed by specialist authors, and the text is complemented by illustrations, including maps and reconstruction drawings. Photographs, many of them especially commissioned, portray the brilliant products of the Vikings'' culture and the beauty and harshness of the natural world they faced.

In The Triumph of Improvisation, James Graham Wilson takes a long view of the end of the Cold War, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 to Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. Drawing on deep archival research and recently declassified papers, Wilson argues that adaptation, improvisation, and engagement by individuals in positions of power ended the specter of a nuclear holocaust. Amid ambivalence and uncertainty, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, George Shultz, and George H. W. Bush—and a host of other actors—engaged with adversaries and adapted to a rapidly changing international environment and information age in which global capitalism recovered as command economies failed. Eschewing the notion of a coherent grand strategy to end the Cold War, Wilson paints a vivid portrait of how leaders made choices; some made poor choices while others reacted prudently, imaginatively, and courageously to events they did not foresee. A book about the burdens of responsibility, the obstacles of domestic politics, and the human qualities of leadership, The Triumph of Improvisation concludes with a chapter describing how George H. W. Bush oversaw the construction of a new configuration of power after the fall of the Berlin Wall, one that resolved the fundamental components of the Cold War on Washington’s terms.

January 2018, and a busy day at the offices of Hull 2017. Today is the ceremonial handover to ambassadors from the next UK City of Culture. Meanwhile, the monitoring and evaluation team have to present The Audit – a measurement of the impact ''the culture'' has had on the city. Can their logic models, outcome evaluations and statistical analyses really measure its impact on the people of Hull? The visiting Minister from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport certainly expect so. What could go wrong...? Only, perhaps, Dennis, an average citizen who arrives into the offices of Hull 2017 on lowgate to register a complaint but accidentally finds himself at the centre of events that could bring the whole thing to its knees The Culture is a satirical farce in two acts, examining the ''culture'' of culture, and the inner workings of the Hull 2017 project.

Based on over 20 years'' prodigious research, Graham takes the reader on a compelling tour of human history & links alcohol addiction with the destructive behavior of a range of public figures, including tyrants, murderers, politicians & writers. Drawing on the case of famous characters such as Alexander the Great, Joseph Stalin, Joe McCarthy & Ernest Hemingway, this book presents a convincing assessment of how this disorder can adversely affect the behavior of powerful individuals with devastating consequences.

Its government has declared a vicious class war. A one-sided war . . . We have started to fight back . . . with bombs. Against a backdrop of Tory cuts, high unemployment and the deregulated economy of 1970s Britain, a young urban guerrilla group mobilises: The Angry Brigade. Their targets: MPs, embassies, police, pageant queens. A world of order is shattered by anarchy and the rules have changed. An uprising has begun. No one is exempt. As a special police squad hunt the home-grown terrorists whose identities shocked the nation, James Graham''s heart-stopping thriller lures us into a frenzied world that looks much like our own. The Angry Brigade was first produced by Paines Plough in September 2014 and this edition, featuring changes to the script, has been published to coincide with the production''s transfer to the Bush Theatre, London, in May 2015.

In America''s Cold Warrior, James Graham Wilson traces Paul Nitze''s career path in national security after World War II, a time when many of his mentors and peers returned to civilian life. Serving in eight presidential administrations, Nitze commanded White House attention even when he was out of government, especially with his withering criticism of Jimmy Carter during Carter''s presidency. While Nitze is perhaps best known for leading the formulation of NSC-68, which Harry Truman signed in 1950, Wilson contends that Nitze''s most significant contribution to American peace and security came in the painstaking work done in the 1980s to negotiate successful treaties with the Soviets to reduce nuclear weapons while simultaneously deflecting skeptics surrounding Ronald Reagan. America''s Cold Warrior connects Nitze''s career and concerns about strategic vulnerability to the post-9/11 era and the challenges of the 2020s, where the United States finds itself locked in geopolitical competition with the People''s Republic of China and Russia.

With Portions Of His Correspondence. Compiled From Authentic Sources.

Who were the medieval illuminators? How were their hand-produced books illustrated and decorated? In this beautiful book Jonathan Alexander presents a survey of manuscript illumination throughout Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth century. He discusses the social and historical context of the illuminators'' lives, considers their methods of work, and presents a series of case studies to show the range and nature of the visual sources and the ways in which they were adapted, copied, or created anew. Alexander explains that in the early period, Christian monasteries and churches were the main centers for the copying of manuscripts, and so the majority of illuminators were monks working in and for their own monasteries. From the eleventh century, lay scribes and illuminators became increasingly numerous, and by the thirteenth century, professional illuminators dominated the field. During this later period, illuminators were able to travel in search of work and to acquire new ideas, they joined guilds with scribes or with artists in the cities, and their ranks included nuns and secular women. Work was regularly collaborative, and the craft was learned through an apprenticeship system. Alexander carefully analyzes surviving manuscripts and medieval treatises in order to explain the complex and time-consuming technical processes of illumination - its materials, methods, tools, choice of illustration, and execution. From rare surviving contracts, he deduces the preoccupation of patrons with materials and schedules. Illustrating his discussion with examples chosen from religious and secular manuscripts made all over Europe, Alexander recreates the astonishing variety and creativity ofmedieval illumination. His book will be a standard reference for years to come.

Reprint of the original.

Updated to reflect recent archaeological discoveries and overflowing with color illustrations, this book is the definitive introduction to the art of the Viking Age. The Viking Age in Europe lasted from the time of the first major Viking expeditions in 800 CE to the widespread adoption of Christianity in Scandinavia some 300 years later. During that time, Viking art and culture spread across continental Europe and into the world beyond. Written by a leading authority on the subject, this book introduces readers to the intricate objects and beautiful art styles that developed during the Viking Age. Beginning with an introduction to the geographical and historical background of Viking culture, author James Graham-Campbell chronicles the six main styles of Viking art, examining how they emerged and interacted with one another, as well as how the religious shift from paganism to Christianity impacted Viking art and its legacy. More than 200 high-quality illustrations depict everything from delicate metalwork, elaborate wood carvings, ornate weapons, and fine jewelry to grand ships, the Gotland picture stones, and archaeological traces left by the Vikings around the Western world. Now revised and updated with recent archaeological discoveries, Viking Art is a perfect guide—including a timeline and maps—for all those interested in the arts of this vibrant and fascinating culture.

Vietnam vet Jack Nelson makes a decent living peddling his flying talents to the highest bidder. When he rescues a young beauty from an attack on Ibiza, he ends up with the opportunity to pull off the heist of a lifetime. There are millions in sunken treasure for the taking in a go-for-broke caper tailor made for Nelson and his partner Harry Turk--and all he has to do to collect the loot is live through it. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

A selection of papers from the 13th Viking Congress focusing on the northern, central, and eastern regions of Anglo-Saxon England colonised by invading Danish armies in the late 9th century, known as the Danelaw. This volume contributes to many of the unresolved scholarly debates surrounding the concept, and extent of the Danelaw.