In a brilliant intellectual adventure that ranges from David Ricardo and Adam Smith to economic geography and the science of complex networks, Shaun Hendy and Paul Callaghan explore how New Zealanders can learn to live off knowledge rather than nature. The key to increasing New Zealand's prosperity, they argue, is innovation in high-tech niches. To catch up with the countries that lure young Kiwis away, New Zealand needs to start innovating like a city of four million people; it needs to start taking science seriously; it needs to start seeing its people as people of learning, not just of the land. Get off the Grass provides a readable introduction to a wide variety of ideas including economic geography, network theory, and complexity theory; offers unique insights into the New Zealand economy and its long-term prospects; adds to current debates worldwide about innovation, science, economic growth, and networks.

Describes marijuana, traces its history, and explains its adverse effects upon the lungs, reproductive function, immune system, and brain

Her life turned upside-down when a Japanese internment camp is opened in their small Colorado town, Rennie witnesses the way her community places suspicion on the newcomers when a young girl is murdered.

"I don't realize I'm crying until he glances at me. For a moment, I see the look of anguish in his eyes, then he blinks it away and slips off into the water. I immediately think of the gator. It's still down there somewhere. . . ." A science-class field trip to the Everglades is supposed to be fun, but Sarah's new at Glades Academy, and her fellow freshmen aren’t exactly making her feel welcome. When an opportunity for an unauthorized side trip on an air boat presents itself, it seems like a perfect escape—an afternoon without feeling like a sore thumb. But one simple oversight turns a joyride into a race for survival across the river of grass. Sarah will have to count on her instincts—and a guy she barely knows—if they have any hope of making it back alive.

What do you do when you are a twenty-five-year-old Yale graduate making half-a-million dollars a year as a hotshot investment banker on Wall Street? You bust your ass and become a millionaire by thirty, of course.Not if you are Samrat Ratan, born in the USA to immigrant Indian parents; you quit and enrol in business school in India instead.Samrat's rollercoaster journey begins at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore, where he spends his time getting high on marijuana while his grades - and self-confidence - plummet. Soon, Samrat's quest for identity turns increasingly bizarre as it takes him places he hadn't planned on visiting - prison, for example - and makes him do things he hadn't banked on doing: 'meditating' stoned with a sexy Danish hippie in the Himalayas, hanging out with a cannibal on the banks of the Ganga, and peddling soap to the formidable Raja Bhaiya in Benares. Does Samrat - Yale valedictorian, investment banker, convict, pothead - survive his fall from grace?

At the age of 21, Jack R. Peterson left home and enlisted with the Navy at the beginnings of the War in Viet Nam. Young and green around the ears, Jack met up with other boys who were ready to become men. None of them had a clue. All of them had eyes clouded with adventure and travel, being independent and in charge of themselves. But the truth was learned soon upon entering boot camp. Their dreams faded due to exhaustion. Their independence was marshalled at Boot Camp. Their maturity tripped up with the stupidity of youth. Life grabbed them by the collar and hauled them into war. This book is a personal memoir of Jack R. Peterson from his enlistment trials, through boot camp, and onto his assignments in the Navy. Finding himself on a flight line in Atsugi, Japan, supporting troops in Da Nang, Vietnam and flying reconnaissance missions over China gave him a broad understanding of the fight and insight into pieces of military history that is not often written about. His honesty, ability to intimately, and his uncanny wit, create a quick read that cannot be put down.