From prehistoric Scotland to the Brexit referendum, this little book covers all of the main events in Scottish history.A concise and excellent guide to Scottish history and how Scotland has come to be what it is today.Key events, people and places include:• The Union of Crowns• Bonnie Prince Charlie• Battle of Bannockburn• Culloden• Burns’ Night• Hogmanay• Alexander Graham Bell• Devolution• Indy Ref 1 and 2...

John Abernethy has seized life with both hands. A man of the land and the sea, he fought in Vietnam, started a successful fishing charter business and owned a horse stud in the Snowy Mountains. Famous for inventing Seabrake, the world's first 'brake for boats', he's ridden the rollercoaster of business highs and lows, enjoyed glittering success and suffered terrible personal loss.In The Right Break, John describes his trajectory from farm boy to international businessman i...

This guide to Scots is a perfect buy for anyone who is intrigued by the expressive Scots language. Besides explaining the meaning of Scottish words and phrases, it also contains features about aspects of Scottish culture from the bagpipes to William Wallace.This wee guide to Scots is essential for those interested in one of the UK’s most fascinating dialects, and is a lively introduction for those scunnered by the vocabulary used north of the border.Scots has a rich history...

'Great two-fisted writing from the far side of hell.' - John Birmingham, bestselling author of He Died with a Felafel in his Hand'A unique look at a gritty game. Relentlessly funny and obsessively readable.' - Phillip Noyce, director of The Quiet American and Clear and Present DangerPaul Carter has been shot at, hijacked and held hostage.He's almost died of dysentery in Asia and toothache in Russia, watched a Texan lose his mind in the jun...

Want to know what really goes on on an aeroplane? Let's go behind the scenes and fly high with these tall tales and gossip from the galley!Everyone wants to be a flight attendant, or at least they want to know about the cushy lifestyle they lead – flying to exotic destinations, swanning about in five-star hotels, daytime lazing around the pool and night-time tabletop dancing with Bollywood stars. At last the lid is lifted. Come on board a real airline with a real f...

Ranulph Fiennes has travelled to the most dangerous and inaccessible places on earth, almost died countless times, lost nearly half his fingers to frostbite, raised millions of pounds for charity and been awarded a polar medal and an OBE. He has been an elite soldier, an athlete, a mountaineer, an explorer, a bestselling author and nearly replaced Sean Connery as James Bond.In his autobiography he describes how he led expeditions all over the world and became the first person to tr...

The truly classic Australian story of Tom Kruse - legendary mailman of the Birdsville Track.For the people who lived in the desert between Marree and Birdsville, contact with the outside world was hard and sporadic - but one man was their lifeline: Tom Kruse. For more than twenty years he was the connection with the outside world for the families, station workers and others who lived along the Birdsville Track.Tom delivered everything from the mail and news...

Carter writes as if he has ADD, careering through his life on oil rigs in exotic locations. He won't win the Booker, but his yarns burn with anarchic energy ... in a word, irrepressible.' - Herald SunHe's back on the rigs and back in trouble.Picking up right where he left off, Paul Carter pulls out more tall tales of a mad, bad and dangerous life in the international oil trade. Starting with action and mayhem galore This Is Not A Drill sets an unrelenting ...

Yeah, while some of my stories are quite gory, others can be very enlightening. Though, in hindsight, the best outcomes are when the patient pulls through. It's then that you know you've done your job, and you get a bit of a buzz out of that.Put the sirens on and get ready to hit the road, because fact is stranger than fiction in this fabulous Australia-wide collection of ambos stories from bestselling author Bill 'Swampy' Marsh.Rural and remote ambulance drivers a...

Entrepreneur, adventurer, philanthropist ... Australian icon Dick Smith shares his extraordinary life story for the first time.'Part Bear Grylls, part Bill Gates, but 100% Aussie larrikin. Dick is a great innovator, philanthropist and adventurer, who in my eyes can do no wrong.' - Paul Hogan'Businessman, adventurer, philanthropist . . . Dick Smith is a true Australian legend.' - Greg Mortimer OAM'I have been charmed by good fortune to be born in...

'The utterly inspirational story behind one of our country's most superb journalists. To have played even the tiniest of roles in helping to ignite Lisa's early fire for journalism gives me more joy than she will ever know.' LISA WILKINSONLisa Millar has spent her whole life showing up, getting things done and making things happen. As a child growing up in country Queensland, she dreamed of a big life. Working as a foreign correspondent g...

At his brother's wedding in 2002, 30-year-old Josh Kench sat with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other, and announced that he was going to do the Coast to Coast. His pronouncement was met with derision, but he's proved his doubters wrong.Josh won the 2010 Lake Taupo Extreme Enduro, covering a mind-numbing eight laps of the 160-kilometre course in 55 hours. And that's only the start of it. In June 2011, this 39-year-old plumber lined up at the start of the Race Across Ame...