His tongue-in-cheek technical explanations here will have you howling with laughter ...-Daily Telegraph After being given yet another pointless man manual that told him fifty ways to tie a bow tie in under thirty seconds, James May, star of the international TV phenomenon Top Gear, was certain guys needed a different kind of book. This book, in fact. He reckons there are nine vital things that a true man should be able to do. Not stuff you can download from the Internet, but really important things, like: HOW TO LAND AN A330 AIRBUS IN AN EMERGENCY* HOW TO PREPARE AND EAT YOUR BEST FRIEND HOW TO DRIVE THE PEPPERCORN CLASS A 1 4-6-2 PACIFIC LOCOMOTIVE TORNADO HOW TO DELIVER TWINS HOW TO DEFUSE AN UNEXPLODED WORLD WAR II BOMB The chances that you will ever meet with the circumstances outlined here are, frankly, very remote. But you're still better off knowing this stuff than not knowing it. Life is a lottery, and maybe, just maybe, it could be you who can do this stuff. But only if you've read this book. *Authors Note: This guide has been prepared for use in an absolute dire, buttock-clenching emergancy. None of the advice inside has been sanctioned by Airbus, any of its associates, or anyone else really. Do not attempt to fly the A330 Airbus on a recreational basis, or use one for joyriding. The A330 is not a toy.

QF32 is the award winning bestseller from Richard de Crespigny, author of the forthcoming Fly!: Life Lessons from the Cockpit of QF32 On 4 November 2010, a flight from Singapore to Sydney came within a knife edge of being one of the world's worst air disasters. Shortly after leaving Changi Airport, an explosion shattered Engine 2 of Qantas flight QF32 - an Airbus A380, the largest and most advanced passenger plane ever built. Hundreds of pieces of shrapnel ripped through the wing and fuselage, creating chaos as vital flight systems and back-ups were destroyed or degraded. In other hands, the plane might have been lost with all 469 people on board, but a supremely experienced flight crew, led by Captain Richard de Crespigny, managed to land the crippled aircraft and safely disembark the passengers after hours of nerve-racking effort. Tracing Richard's life and career up until that fateful flight, QF32 shows exactly what goes into the making of a top-level airline pilot, and the extraordinary skills and training needed to keep us safe in the air. Fascinating in its detail and vividly compelling in its narrative, QF32 is the riveting, blow-by-blow story of just what happens when things go badly wrong in the air, told by the captain himself. Winner of ABIA Awards for Best General Non-fiction Book of the Year 2013 and Indie Awards' Best Non-fiction 2012 Shortlisted ABIA Awards' Book of the Year 2013

The smudge looked suspiciously penis- like. The doctor confirmed: "That's the baby's penis!" which caused not celebration, but panic. Joel pictured having to go camping and fix a car and use a hammer and throw a football and watch professionals throw footballs and figure out whether to be sad or happy about the results of said football throwing. So begins his quest to confront his effete nature whether he likes it or not (he doesn't), by doing a twenty-four-hour shift with L.A. firefighters, going hunting, rebuilding a house, driving a Lamborghini, enduring three days of boot camp with the U.S. Army, day-trading with $100,000, and going into the ring with UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture. Seeking help from a panel of experts, including his manly father-in-law, Boy Scouts, former NFL star Warren Sapp, former MLB All-Star Shawn Green, Adam Carolla, and a pit bull named Hercules, he expects to learn that masculinity is defined not by the size of his muscles, but by the size of his heart (also, technically, a muscle). This is not at all what he learns.

A gripping account of how a major air disaster was averted, by the captain and former Top Gun pilot Instinctively, I release my pressure on the sidestick. Out of my subconscious, a survival technique from a previous life emerges: Neutralise! I'm not in control so I must neutralise controls. I never imagined I'd use this part of my military experience in a commercial airliner ... On routine flight QF72 from Singapore to Perth on 7 October 2008, the primary flight computers went rogue, causing the plane to pitch down, nose first, towards the Indian Ocean - twice. The Airbus A330 carrying 315 passengers and crew was out of control, with violent negative G forces propelling anyone and anything untethered through the cabin roof. It took the skill and discipline of veteran US Navy Top Gun Kevin Sullivan, captain of the ill-fated flight, to wrestle the plane back under control and perform a high-stakes emergency landing at a RAAF base on the WA coast 1200 kilometres north of Perth. In No Man's Land, the captain of the flight tells the full story for the first time. It's a gripping, blow-by-blow account of how, along with his co-pilots, Sullivan relied on his elite military training to land the gravely malfunctioning plane and narrowly avert what could have been a horrific air disaster. As automation becomes the way of the future, and in the aftermath of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 and Lion Air flight JT610, the story of QF72 raises important questions about how much control we relinquish to computers and whether more checks and balances are needed. A gripping read in the tradition of Sully: Miracle on the Hudson by Chesley B. Sullenberger.

The most comprehensive coverage to date of Air France 447, an Airbus A330 that crashed in the ocean north of Brazil on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 persons on board. Written by A330 Captain, Bill Palmer, this book opens to understanding the actions of the crew, how they failed to understand and control the problem, and how the airplane works and the part it played. All in easy to understand terms. Addressed are the many contributing aspects of weather, human factors, and airplane system operation and design that the crew could not recover from. How each contributed is covered in detail along with what has been done, and needs to be done in the future to prevent this from happening again. Also see the book's companion website: UnderstandingAF447.com

'A typically Mayesque celebration of classic engineering ... May is extraordinarily good at explaining what a carburettor is or outlining how a governor works... It's charming, transfixing and surprisingly intimate...It might be the best thing he's ever done.' - Guardian [review of BBC4 TV series] 'Reassembly is merely a form of therapy; something that stimulates a part of my brain that is left wanting in my daily life. When I rebuild a bicycle, I re-order my head. So might you... I'm delighted that you will be holding in your hands a book about putting things back together. It's a subject that fascinates me but which I assumed was a lonely passion that I would take to the grave, unconsummated by the normal channels of human interaction. Welcome! You and I, we are not alone, and our screwdrivers are our flashing Excaliburs as we sally forth to make small parts of the fragmented world whole again.' As in his hit BBC4 TV series, as well as learning the history of the objects, we get a history of the component parts. As James rebuilds an engine, he explains the cylinders, what they are, how they came about and what they do.