A collection of hilarious, nonsensical, witty and mischievous subjects - the best (and worst) advice for growing up.There is one sure-fire method to avoid being eaten by sharks. Don’t go in the ocean.How can you avoid being eaten by sharks? What does it mean to ‘skateboard’ someone? Is there a chance you could be abducted by aliens? Are there zombies hiding under your brother’s bed?In this hilarious guide, John Larkin relates his tried and ...

Eric Underwood is what some people would call a loser and a westie, but he's doing the best he can. He didn't get the looks, he doesn't get the luck, and even when he does get the girl, it never seems to last for long.So far he's abandoned Veronica to the sharks (two-legged and otherwise), been told he'll be travelling to England with his grandma, been caught snogging his pillow, been banished to the shed-and that's only the beginning!Eric's story will make you feel good ab...

‘I tried to be forgettable. That’s how I survived.’The shadow girl never imagined she'd live on the streets. After her parents disappear, life with her aunt and uncle takes a sinister turn. Terrified that the authorities will believe her uncle over her, she flees. She tricks her way into a new school and pretends to have a loving family. No one knows she sleeps in rail yards, sand dunes and abandoned houses. At school she meets the author she will call on years later. Toge...

The 101 vital medical tips other textbooks don't teach you - Following the success of the award winning Cynical Acumen, John Larkin outlines key knowledge for medical students and junior doctors. Clustered around the headings of cynical, survival, clinical, career and miscellaneous tips.

The Western Wildcats are in trouble.About the only good thing you could say for their goalkeeper, Smokin (so called because he’s never without a Chupa Chup in his mouth!), is that he’s got a newish pair of gloves. He keeps taking off for the toilet or he’ll go to the canteen or home—right in the middle of a game! But he’s got a lot on his mind, what with his father building a blue and yellow (Go the Eels!) Chinese junk in their backyard and planning to sail off down the local creek...

The Wildcats are in trouble again! Down on the ground, there’s got to be some way of raising funds, and their coach comes up with health food bars. Only trouble is they’re inedible, and whoever sells the most gets an all-expenses-paid trip to Canberra.Up in the air, though, Splinters and Nuke are on their way to London to retrieve their best player, Gazza, who’s been deported back to England with her mum, and the two boys get up to the sort of in-flight antics that have made travel...

Trying to get enough kids to form a decent football team isn’t easy! It’s not just the playing time involved on the weekends; it’s the training sessions after school and at night too. But when the Wildcats reluctantly take on Peta ‘Gazza” Gascoigne to make up the numbers, they quickly discover that she’s the best player they’ve got. Not only that, she’s got an attractive and apparently unattached—or loosely attached—mum. And Splinters is looking for a new partner for his dad.Everyt...

When Tangles doesn’t turn up to training for a couple of weeks, it looks as though the Wildcats will be facing more recruitment problems. Then Splinters spots Tangles up at the shops wearing a bandanna and a Camp Quality T-shirt and he realises the truth: Tangles is seriously ill.Splinters wants the Wildcats to try for the Guinness Book of Records marathon soccer match in order to raise some money and buy Tangles a special machine from the States that will save his life.But...

Eric Underwood, also known as Spaghetti Legs and Pizza Features, serves up the final course in the pasta trilogy: Lasagne Brain.Eric would love to be an intellectual and here he unexpectedly takes the journey from boyhood to manhood, and the only question he wants to ask is: can he go back?With his mind-boggling essays driving teachers out of their minds, the love of his life Veronica Roberts dumping him, his best friend hanging round Woolies with a trolley full of bananas ...

Winner of the Medical Journalists' Association Specialist Book of the Year Award 2006 Cynical Acumen approaches medicine in the real world, dealing with issues ignored by other books. It is a unique, 'what you really need to know' textbook designed to help medical students and senior house officers look slick and pass their exams against all odds. The book entertainingly considers the world outside medicine with anecdotes on the important things in life such as sport, literature, Thai cook...

Splinters has somehow managed to scoop the jackpot and score the Wildcats a gig playing at the reopening of Wembley Stadium. The team is excited until they realise that they are scheduled to play the cream of English schoolboys. And it’s the Wildcats who are going to get creamed!After years of being humiliated by Australia at cricket, swimming, equestrian, and beach volleyball, the English FA decides that, with the rest of the world watching, it’s time for a bit of colonial payback...

The Western Wildcats might appear to be a bunch of losers, but Paul and Eric Underwood’s father has come up with the formula for making them winners: they’ve got to start acting Brazilian. Everyone should wise up when he takes control of the weekend barbecue and almost burns the house down – but they don’t, and it can only be hoped that he’s a better coach than he is a cook!First it’s out to the sandhills, where champion sprinter and nerdy older brother Eric (Spaghetti Legs) is goi...