When his father's bankruptcy lands him, at age 9, in an orphanage in Springfield, Massachusetts, Dan McCall escapes to live in a hotel room with his dad, and of necessity to learn independence. He follows his natural curiosity about people into ceaseless adventures - exploring ethnically-mixed city streets, hitchhiking New England roads, hiking the Appalachian Trail, and enrolling in Depression-era summer military programs. Along the way, Dan discovers and nurtures his own deep love of learning; he haunts public libraries, engages teachers and school friends, and rebels against his Irish Catholic heritage. Lacking money for college, he rides the rails across country to harvest crops and falls in with a series of down-and-outers scrambling to make a living. He flirts with communism and socialism, and stays briefly on a farm with intellectuals creating their own institution of learning. Dan is ultimately caught up in World War II, where his experience as a hospital orderly places him in the South Pacific as a medic slated to go ashore in battle. This often-rollicking and always fascinating coming-of-age story, which ends as Dan enters college, is in the category of adventures too amazing to be fiction.

Never get too close to anyone, because you might have to kill them. Meet Mark "Chopper" Read. You think you know him. His books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Australia. He's been the subject of an internationally successful film. His one-man shows have toured Australia to sell-out crowds. He's the most recognisable criminal brand name in Australia. But the truth is, you don't know him at all. Toe-cutter. Blowtorch aficionado. Killer. Husband. Father. Children's author. Stand-up comedian. The real Chopper has been an enigma - until now, that is. This is the definitive Chopper story. From his strange, tortured childhood, to the formative years as a young gang member and developing criminal, to his decades in and out of prison in Victoria and Tasmania, to his friends and enemies, and his crimes and punishments, this book gives us the true stories that lie behind the Chopper myths, as well as the stories he's never revealed before. One Thing Led To Another is the real story of the man behind the tattoos, the scars and the most famous missing ears in Australia. It is an utterly compelling insight into our most notorious, most recognisable and most fascinating criminal.

Over the past four decades, policy makers and stakeholders have struggled with the challenge of promoting industrial development in low and middle-income economies in general, and in sub-Saharan African (SSA) in particular. With the rise of the Asian Drivers (China and India) and their increase in demand for raw materials to fuel growth, the turn of the millennium saw a commodity price super-cycle emerge, benefiting a number of resource rich countries in SSA. Faced with the specter of the Resource Curse, this book examines an industrial pathway where countries can Make the Most of Commodities. Bringing together ground-breaking research in the commodity sectors, this book uses case-studies to explore conduits for industrial development, focusing on backward and forward linkages, with policy advice for both governments and corporate sectors.

Are there any "laws of nature" that influence the ways in which humans behave and organize themselves? In the seventeenth century, tired of the civil war ravaging England, Thomas Hobbes decided that he would work out what kind of government was needed for a stable society. His approach was based not on utopian wishful thinking but rather on Galileo's mechanics to construct a theory of government from first principles. His solution is unappealing to today's society, yet Hobbes had sparked a new way of thinking about human behavior in looking for the "scientific" rules of society. Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Auguste Comte, and John Stuart Mill pursued this idea from different political perspectives. Little by little, however, social and political philosophy abandoned a "scientific" approach. Today, physics is enjoying a revival in the social, political and economic sciences. Ball shows how much we can understand of human behavior when we cease to try to predict and analyze the behavior of individuals and instead look to the impact of individual decisions-whether in circumstances of cooperation or conflict-can have on our laws, institutions and customs. Lively and compelling, Critical Mass is the first book to bring these new ideas together and to show how they fit within the broader historical context of a rational search for better ways to live.

Tess Jarvis's rules for life have always been somewhat relaxed; she tends to wing it. But she's fast realising that her bank of blag is running out of funds. At twenty eight, is it time to grow up? Maybe having a baby with your best friend isn't the best way to start...At the height of her career as the office roving reporter singleton, Katy Regan fell accidently pregnant by her best mate (who just remained a friend). Seeing the creative possibilities in this unconventional situation, her editor commissioned her to write a column 'And Then There Were Three', which proved so successful it ran for two years and inspired many a reader to write intot Katy with his or her life story.

Internationally acclaimed designer and illustrator Dan Stiles offers a collection of over 200 concert posters for many of today's leading acts including Arctic Monkeys, The XX, Sonic Youth, Girl Talk, and hundreds more. From Indie Rock to Dance Punk, these lovingly screen-printed posters provide a visual narrative of the music that shaped the last decade. Including extensive writing by Stiles and a foreword by famed rock poster historian Paul Grushkin, One Thing Leads to Another is a glorious celebration of both music and design.