John Crace

Sutherland, John

An A-Z of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte

Brontesaurus

'The Maybot is rebooted as strong and humble. Stumble for short.' 'Kim Jong-May awkward and incredulous as journalist asks question.' 'Supreme leader produces pure TV Valium on The One Show.' Throughout 2017 John Crace, the Guardian's parliamentary sketch writer, has watched Prime Minister Theresa May's efforts to remain strong and stable - and, indeed, Prime Minister. He coined the term 'Maybot' for her malfunctioning public appearances. And now, in this edited collection of his unremittingly witty sketches, he tells the full story of Theresa May's turbulent first year in Westminster. As waspishly hilarious as Craig Brown's diaries in Private Eye, I, Maybot is essential and hysterically funny reading for anyone trying to make sense of our crazy political year.

The Rise and Fall

I, Maybot

Read in Case of Political Apocalypse

Decline and Fail

Good Brexiteers Guide to English Lit

This book hilariously summarises the great and not so great classics of modern English literature from the last century. Includes Mrs Dalloway, Midnight's Children,Lolita and many others.

The Digested Read of the Twentieth Century

Brideshead Abbreviated

Exactly a week after the general election, two men – ‘Call me Dave’ and ‘Call me Nick’ – walked side by side into the rose garden of No. 10 Downing Street to give their first press-conference as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, looking for all the world like men in love. It was a romance in which people wanted to believe. But it was also one that people couldn't help but mistrust. Most unnerving, however, was the sense that they both couldn't quite believe their luck. Cameron: I can't believe it. All those people out there just for us ... Clegg: I know. It's mad, isn't it? I have to keep pinching myself as well. Cameron: Go on say it again ... Clegg: What? Cameron: Call me Prime Minister ... The storms the Dave and Nick partnership would have to face (same sex marriage, plebgate, triple dip recession, riots ...) were then unclear. Now, almost five years on, this up-to-the-minute portrait of Westminster and the forthcoming General Election exposes the realities of the Coalition, while offering an indispensible guide to a half-decade of madness: · * Foreign Policy - The new 'special relationship' - William Hague and Angelina Jolie · * The Economy - Osborne finally cracks it: boom in London; bust everywhere else. · * Immigration - should the entire population of Bulgaria pick strawberries for us? · * The Opposition - how Labour got the wrong Miliband. Includes: * UKIP, PPI, ISIS and other dubious acronyms. · * The countdown to the General Election 2015: five years of planning since the last one. Insightful, painful, very funny, this is a must-read for all of us with a vote, whichever side we thought we were on.

A Short Guide to Modern Politics, the Coalition and the General Election

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Who is Harry Redknapp? Football genius or football chancer? Master tactician or practical joker? How is it that even when he was facing court proceedings for tax evasion so many people were still seriously tipping him to be the next England manager? How can one man have two such diametrically opposed and incompatible career trajectories? Does the longing to have an English manager in charge of the national side warp people's thinking?' To Portsmouth fans, Redknapp was the man who walked on water and won them an FA Cup. To Southampton fans, he is still the devil incarnate who had them relegated before jumping ship to their arch rivals. Spurs fans aren't sure what he is, bit don't care as long as he keeps the team together and winning. Sometimes he's the Messiah, at others the clown. Whoever he is, Crace is determined to find out.

Inside the Mind of Harry Redknapp

Harry's Games

John Sutherland

Cease I say, cantankerous old fools / Thy deeds hath made our streets a no go zone / No more shall Montagues and Capulets / Enact their West Side Story Sharks and Jets / Or else shall pay the forfeit of the peace.To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, this is the second of a new collection of the Bard's greatest plays, digested to a few thousand words with invaluable footnotes from John Sutherland. Funny and incredibly clever, these parodies are a joy for those who know their Shakespeare, perfect for teh theatre goer needing a quick recap, and a massive relief for those just desperate to pass their English exam.

Romeo and Juliet

Benedick I am man enough to say that I love thee. Is that not strange? Beatrice Not really Benedick By my sword, Beatrice thou lovest me. Beatrice Get over yourself To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, this is the third of a new collection of the Bard's greatest plays, digested to a few thousand words with invaluable side notes from John Sutherland. Funny and incredibly clever, these parodies are a joy for those who know their Shakespeare, perfect for the theatre goer needing a quick recap, and a massive relief for those just desperate to pass their English exam. "

Incomplete Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing

John Crace's 'Digested Read' column in the Guardian has rightly acquired a cult following. Each week fans avidly devour his latest razor-sharp literary assassination, while authors turn tremblingly to the appropriate page of the review section, fearful that it may be their turn to be mercilessly sent up. Now he turns his critical eye on the classics of the last century, offering bite-sized pastiches of everything from Mrs Dalloway to Trainspotting via Lolita and The Great Gatsby. Those who have never quite got around to reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man will be delighted to find its essence distilled into a handful of paragraphs. Those who have never really enjoyed Lord of the Flies will be pleased to find it hilariously parodied in an easily swallowable 982 words. And those who find all such works a little highbrow will be relieved to discover, between the covers of this book, John Crace's take on the likes of Ian Fleming, P. G. Wodehouse and the Highway Code. Witty and sharp, this is essential reading both for those who genuinely love literature and for those who merely want to appear ridiculously well read.

Benedick: I am man enough to say that I love thee. Is that not strange? Beatrice: Not really... Benedick: By my sword, Beatrice thou lovest me. Beatrice: Get over yourself To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, this is the third of a new collection of the Bard's greatest plays, digested to a few thousand words with invaluable side notes from John Sutherland. Funny and incredibly clever, these parodies are a joy for those who know their Shakespeare, perfect for the theatre goer needing a quick recap, and a massive relief for those just desperate to pass their English exam. This ebook has a large amount of footnotes and is best viewed on a device that supports pop-up text.

Incomplete Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing

'Optimism, mojo, complete bollocks. That's what the country is crying out for.' There is now only one certainty in life. When things can't possibly get worse, they absolutely will. And so, after three years of Maybot malfunctioning and Brexit bungling, welcome to BoJo the clown's national circus - where fun for none of the family is guaranteed. Fear not, however: Decline and Fail is your personal survival guide to the ongoing political apocalypse. This unremittingly entertaining collection of John Crace's lifegiving political sketches will get you through the darkest of days - or failing that, will at least help you see the funny side. Miss it at your peril...

Brexit Column Collection

John Crace's Digested Read first appeared in in February 2000 and has been running ever since. Each week Crace reduces a new book – anything from a Booker Prize winner to a Nigella cookery book is fair game – to 700 words in a parody of the plot, style, dialogue and themes. Or lack of them. The Digested Read has not just become an institution for readers; it is read and enjoyed by publishers and authors too. So long as it is not their book being digested. A few years ago Crace wrote Brideshead Abbreviated, A Digested Read of the 20th Century. This is the 21st Century. So far.

The Digested Twenty-first Century

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs . . . then you're probably not a football fan. Years of underachievement. An heroic sense of injustice. A seemingly infinite capacity for self-destruction. John Crace and Spurs were made for each other. But then the team started to play like possible champions. For most fans, these are the glory moments they dream about. For Crace they just opened a new dimension of anxiety: the fear of success. Crace has supported Spurs for 40 years. His wife thinks he suffers from a psychiatric disorder, but fandom is not only one of the ways he negotiates his relationships, it also helps him make some sense of his life. Vertigo is the story of why fandom that starts out in boyish hope always ends in dark comedy.

Spurs, Bale and One Fan's Fear of Success

Vertigo

Exactly a week after the general election, two men—Call me Dave and Call me Nick—walked side by side out into the rose garden of No. 10 Downing Street to give their first joint press-conference as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, looking for all the world like men in love. It was a romance in which people wanted to believe. But it was also one that people couldn't help but mistrust. Most unnerving, however, was the sense that they both couldn't quite believe their luck. Just how much fun the coalition was going to be for the rest of the country was then unclear. But now, almost five years on, this must-read guide to Westminster and the forthcoming General Election exposes the realities of Coaltion, while also featuring how Labour came to get the wrong Miliband, the Big Topics—Europe, Immigration, Education, Phone Hacking, and the Economy ('Stupid'...)—as well as UKIP and other dubious acronyms, and the countdown to the General Election 2015: five years of planning since the last one. This book is insightful, painful, and hilarious, whichever side you thought you were on.

An Insider's Guide to Modern Politics, the Coalition and the General Election

One Football Fan's Fear of Success

'It's now becoming easier and easier to predict government policy. Just listen to what the prime minister said in the morning and the opposite is likely to be true come the middle of the afternoon.' Throughout another year of bluster and bedlam in Westminster, John Crace's brilliantly acerbic political sketches have once more provided the nation with a much-needed injection of humour. In A Farewell to Calm, Crace introduces an infectiously funny selection of his finest pieces from 2020-21, taking in everything from a summer of unfathomable U-turns to Christmas Covid confusion, and from lockdown-lifting to Brexit blithering. Led by Boris's poundshop Churchill tribute act, and featuring a cast of everyone's least favourite pantomime villains, from Classic Dom Cummings to Door Matt Hancock, the end result is a brilliantly entertaining chronicle of another tumultuous year on these benighted islands.

The New Normal Survival Guide

A Farewell to Calm

Alas poor Yorick, he looks not at all well. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, though sadly finite breath. Though thy gibes be still, yet still thou grins. I seldom saw thy teeth look quite so clean To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, this is the fourth of a new collection of the Bard's greatest plays, digested to a few thousand words with invaluable side notes from John Sutherland. Funny and incredibly clever, these parodies are a joy for those who know their Shakespeare, perfect for the theatre goer needing a quick recap, and a massive relief for those just desperate to pass their English exam.

Incomplete Shakespeare: Hamlet

A FREE extended extract from the forthcoming biography of Harry Redknapp, including the Wit & Wisdom of the greatest football manager England never had (with apologies to Brian Clough). Who is Harry Redknapp? Football genius or football chancer? Master tactician or practical joker? How is it that even when he was facing court proceedings for tax evasion so many people were still seriously tipping him to be the next England manager? How can one man have two such diametrically opposed and incompatible career trajectories? Does the longing to have an English manager in charge of the national side warp people's thinking?' To Portsmouth fans, Redknapp was the man who walked on water and won them an FA Cup. To Southampton fans, he is still the devil incarnate who had them relegated before jumping ship to their arch rivals. Spurs fans weren't sure what he was, bit didn't care as long as he kept the team together and winning. Sometimes he's the Messiah, at others the clown. Whoever he is, Crace is determined to find out.

Harry's Games, Wit and Wisdom

Cease I say, cantankerous old fools / Thy deeds hath made our streets a no go zone / No more shall Montagues and Capulets / Enact their West Side Story Sharks and Jets / Or else shall pay the forfeit of the peace.To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, this is the second of a new collection of the Bard's greatest plays, digested to a few thousand words with invaluable footnotes from John Sutherland. Funny and incredibly clever, these parodies are a joy for those who know their Shakespeare, perfect for the theatre goer needing a quick recap, and a massive relief for those just desperate to pass their English exam. This ebook has a large amount of footnotes and is best viewed on a device that supports pop-up text.

John Crace

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