A novel which takes you on a roller-coaster ride inside the mind of its eponymous hero. A story both contemporary (set in the 2010’s) and nostalgic, funny, quirky and sometimes tragic. A sensitive hero, beneath his ‘blokey’ exterior, and his attempts to find ‘true’ happiness. With just twelve weeks to go before his wedding to ophthalmic surgeon, Jo, thirty year old drug rep, Michael, is panicking. If only he’d found the courage to tell Jo he hadn’t proposed when she believed he had, but Jo’s a determined woman, and besides, the truth would have made her unhappy, and making others unhappy is something Michael has tried to avoid for as long as he can remember. Michael is only too aware that this approach to life hasn’t brought him much happiness, earning him to date not only a wedding he’s dreading, but an unwanted career, ghosts that haunt his past and present, and just lately, recurring nightmares featuring characters from Star Wars (the original trilogy of course). Add to this his future mother-in-law’s farcical wedding preparations, an aunt who’s mad as a box of frogs, a wannabe cowboy for a father, a sister who’s slowly reducing the wildlife population of Australia, the realisation that he doesn’t love his fiancée enough to marry her, and the indefinite detention of the woman he really does love (for stabbing her partner before eating microwaved paella), it’s hardly surprising that Michael is teetering on the brink. When his only hope of survival requires making a lot of people (plus one determined ghost) very unhappy, what’s he going to do?

This introduction to the field of urban design offers a comprehensive survey of the processes necessary to implement urban design work, explaining the vocabulary, the rules, the tools, the structures, and the resources in clear and accessible style. Providing a comprehensive framework for understanding urban design principles and strategies, the author argues that urban design is both a process and a collaboration in which the different forces involved are knit together. Moving from the regional scale down to the scale of places, the book examines the goals and strategies of the urban designer from the viewpoints of the private sector, public sector, and community. The text is illustrated throughout with photographs and drawings that make theory and practice relevant and alive.

Even though he's a successful criminal, Glasgow villain Kenny O'Neill is angry. Not only has his high-class escort girlfriend just been attacked, but his father is reaching out to him from the past--despite abandoning Kenny as a child after his mother's suicide. Kenny is now on a dual mission to hunt down his girl's attacker and find out the truth about his father--but instead he unravels disturbing family secrets and finds that revenge is not always sweet. An intelligent, violent thriller shot through with dark humor, Beyond the Rage enthralls and disturbs in equal measure. With an intricate plot, all-too-believable characters, and perfectly pitched dialog, this is a master class in psychological crime fiction writing.

This special centenary edition of The Discovery of Insulin celebrates a path-breaking medical discovery that has changed lives around the world.

"What a vibrant, propulsive, wildly intelligent and big-hearted slice of life Sophomores is, an intricate portrait of a family in crisis rendered with a great deal of humor and compassion. I loved this family, this corner of the world, this novel." -Claire Lombardo, author of The Most Fun We Ever Had The late 1980s come alive in this moving and keenly observed story of one boy's unforgettable sophomore year, and his parents' surprising journey alongside him. It's fall 1987 and life as normal is ending for the Malone family. With their sterile Dallas community a far cry from the Irish-American Bronx of their youth, Pat and Anne Malone have reached a breaking point. Pat, faced with a debilitating MS diagnosis, has fallen into his drinking. Anne, his devoutly Catholic wife, is selected as a juror for a highly publicized attempted murder trial, one that raises questions--about God, and about men in power--she has buried her entire life. Together, they try to raise their only son, Daniel, a bright but unmotivated student who is shocked into actual learning by an enigmatic English teacher. For once, Dan is unable to fly under the radar, and is finally asked to consider what he might want to make of his life. With humor and tenderness, Sophomores brilliantly captures the enduring poignancy of coming of age, teenage epiphanies and heartbreak, and family redemption.

Through its coverage of 19 epidemics associated with a broad range of wars, and blending medical knowledge, demographics, geographic, and medical information with historical and military insights, this book reveals the complex relationship between epidemics and wars throughout history. How did small pox have a tremendous effect on two distinct periods of war—one in which the disease devastated entire native armies and leadership, and the other in which technological advancements and the application of medical knowledge concerning the disease preserved an army and as a result changed the course of events? Epidemics and War: The Impact of Disease on Major Conflicts in History examines fascinating historical questions like this and dozens more, exploring a plethora of communicable diseases—viral, fungal, and/or bacterial in nature—that spread and impacted wars or were spread by some aspect of mass human conflict. Written by historians, medical doctors, and people with military backgrounds, the book presents a variety of viewpoints and research approaches. Each chapter examines an epidemic in relation to a period of war, demonstrating how the two impacted each other and affected the populations involved directly and indirectly. Starting with three still unknown/unidentified epidemics (ranging from Classical Athens to the Battle of Bosworth in England), the book's chapters explore a plethora of diseases that spread through wars or significantly impacted wars. The book also examines how long-ended wars can play a role in the spread of epidemics a generation later, as seen in the 21st-century mumps epidemic in Bosnia, 15 to 20 years after the Bosnian conflicts of the 1990s.

The productivity slowdown of the 1970s and 1980s and the resumption of productivity growth in the 1990s have provoked controversy among policymakers and researchers. Economists have been forced to reexamine fundamental questions of measurement technique. Some researchers argue that econometric approaches to productivity measurement usefully address shortcomings of the dominant index number techniques while others maintain that current productivity statistics underreport damage to the environment. In this book, the contributors propose innovative approaches to these issues. The result is a state-of-the-art exposition of contemporary productivity analysis. Charles R. Hulten is professor of economics at the University of Maryland. He has been a senior research associate at the Urban Institute and is chair of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Michael Harper is chief of the Division of Productivity Research at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Edwin R. Dean, formerly associate commissioner for Productivity and Technology at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is adjunct professor of economics at The George Washington University.