I tell you, you meet some strange characters in this game.... Boasting the biggest beats in the world - some as large as France - Australia's outback police have seen it all: natural disasters, incredible acts of selflessness, unspeakable crimes and daring rescues, just to name a few. And they've met some unforgettable characters along the way: from the murderer who stuffed his victims' bodies down wombat holes to the policeman who arrested his own wife....

The trucker's job - so vital to our nation's everyday life - makes for a diverse treasure trove of stories. This first-ever collection of stories about Aussie truckers captures the humour, tragedy, and fascinating history of their world, proving once again that truth is often stranger, funnier, and more inspiring than fiction. The unlikely yarns and tales, collected by Jim Haynes, quickly transport the listener into the intriguing but often hard and lonely world of the long-distance truck driver.

Inside one of the world's most dangerous jobs with the star of History's top-rated reality show, Ice Road Truckers. The highest-rated reality show ever to hit the History channel, Ice Road Truckers follows the heart-pounding adventures of the tough-as-nails truckers who risk peril every day to deliver goods and supplies in Alaska and across Canada's frozen north. Alex Debogorski here shares tales of his adventures - and misadventures.

They say that only truck drivers experience the true grandeur and landscape of America. In A Trucker's Tale, Ed Miller gives an inside look at the allure of the work and the colorful characters who haul our goods on the open road. He shares what it was like to grow up in a trucking family, his experience as an equipment officer in Vietnam, and the trials and tribulations of life as a trucker. His tales are often funny, sometimes sad, cringeworthy, or unbelievable. Many are the results of what he calls "just plain stupidity."

This book chronicles my 30-plus years in the transportation industry. Starting as a taxi driver during a transit strike, to driving Long Combination Vehicles, measuring over 120 feet long, weighing over 130,000 lbs. My travels have taken me to all of the lower 48 states, and all Canadian provinces except Newfoundland. Some of the stories are quite humorous, others are quite tragic. All have had a lasting effect on me.

Tony James Slater knew nothing about Australia. Except for the fact that he'd just arrived there. The stage is set for an outrageous adventure: three people, one van, on an epic, 20,000-mile road trip around Australia. They're crisscrossing the continent through some of the most inhospitable land on the planet - the infamous Aussie Outback. Unprepared, underqualified, and hopelessly inept, Tony battles gigantic pumpkins, mechanical mishaps, and suicidal kangaroos, armed only with a thong and a sense of humor.

Driven by a desire to break free from his mediocre, middle-class existence and escape the Belfast (IRA) “Troubles” of the 70’s, Chris Donaldson strikes out on his café racing Moto Guzzi on a cross-country roadtrip of self-discovery. But when the Iranian revolution stops the planned motorcycle trip to Australia, he switches gears and begins a 33-country, 50,000-mile odyssey across Europe, Asia, and the Americas including 10,000 miles on an ocean-going racing yacht.

In a radical departure from her urban life, Ann Turner buys a piece of remote Vermont land and sets up a tent home in the forest. In an effort to escape an unending string of personal disasters in Boston, she hopes to find a kind of peace in this new life. She soon learns she was mistaken in thinking a kindly Mother Earth would grant her wisdom and serenity in her new home. The forest confronts her with unanticipated dangers, aching loneliness, harsh weather, and wildlife. Then necessity requires her to start work as a farmhand.

Carroll Shelby wasn’t born to run. He was born to race - some of the fastest cars ever to tear up a speedway. The exciting new feature film Ford v Ferrari - starring Matt Damon as Shelby and Christian Bale as fellow racer Ken Miles - immortalizes the small-town Texas boy who won the notorious Le Mans 24-hour endurance challenge and changed the face of auto racing with the legendary Shelby Cobra. But there’s much more to his high-velocity, history-making story.

Curtis Turner, the most dynamic stock-car racer of all time, wrote the book on living fast and dying young. As the first NASCAR celebrity, his life embodied all that made NASCAR a hit spectator sport: the adrenaline rush of the races; the potential for danger at every turn; and the charismatic, outrageous personality of a winner. He created drama at the racetrack and in his personal life, living the American Dream several times over before he died a violent and mysterious death at the age of 46.

A true story of how a middle-aged married couple abandon lucrative white-collar professional careers to become long-haul truck drivers for Schneider National in Green Bay, Wisconsin. David Hamel, a mechanical engineer, and Shelley Hamel, past Director of Product Development for the American Girl doll company, decide to ditch their urban life and go to truck-driving school. For David, driving school was a piece of cake. For Shelley, it was murder. Nearly flunking out of truck driving school, Shelley successfully faces her twin demons of double-clutching and 10 nasty gears.

In the early 1970s, author and radio host Studs Terkel went around the country with a reel-to-reel tape recorder interviewing people about their jobs. The result was the best-selling book Working. The great interviewer of his day, Terkel celebrated the uncelebrated, and Working elevated the stories of ordinary people and their daily lives. Here is the complete audio documentary as broadcast by NPR, plus exclusive bonus interviews and commentary.

Emma Gray was just 23 when she moved to an isolated farm in Northumberland, becoming Britain's youngest solo shepherdess. In the seasons that followed, Emma fell in love with its rolling fields, sycamore trees and sturdy farmhouse, where she tended her sheep and trained her dogs - and even found romance along the way. But when Emma finds herself suddenly alone again, heartbroken, mourning the loss of loved ones and recovering from a serious accident, she can't help but wonder if her isolated existence is still such a sensible idea.

Part two of this 9.0 earthquake and volcano trilogy picks up right where the exciting conclusion to Tahoma’s Hammer left you hanging. As new allies begin to move onto the rifle club’s property, Phil must begin the grieving process for the recent personal tragedy. Rising violence throughout Slaughter County forces the club members to take drastic action, even at the risk of government reprisal. In the midst of this, Phil discovers a dear friend has been gravely injured. He decides to set out to find him before it’s too late.

The perfect gift for music and car lovers, Special Deluxe is Neil Young's New York Times best-selling follow-up to Waging Heavy Peace....

At forty years old, a successful writer, husband and father, no longer toiling on offshore drilling rigs, was Paul Carter happily nestled in the cotton wool of suburban life enjoying the fruits of his labour? Was he f**k! With his manic life left far behind and the perfect opportunity to take it easy stretched before him what else would a middle-aged, bike obsessed, man want? Yes, that's right, he'd want to be the first guy to ride around Australia on an underpowered experimental motorcycle that runs on used cooking oil, wouldn't he? Preferably without getting hit by a semi-trailer full of bridge parts.

Inside one of the world's most dangerous jobs with the star of History's top-rated reality show, Ice Road Truckers. The highest-rated reality show ever to hit the History channel, Ice Road Truckers follows the heart-pounding adventures of the tough-as-nails truckers who risk peril every day to deliver goods and supplies in Alaska and across Canada's frozen north. Alex Debogorski here shares tales of his adventures - and misadventures.

People who have read my books, particularly “The War of Art” and its cousins, have a vague idea of the odyssey of a particular solitary guy, wracked with guilt and riven by self-doubt, as he struggles toward his destiny as a writer. But they have only the scantiest conception of the particulars of that journey. These particulars I’m hoping may be of use to others as they wrestle with their own version of that same odyssey. So let me try to strip it down. Let me tell the parts I normally leave out.

Here are the voices of London - rich and poor, native and immigrant, women and men. From the woman whose voice announces the stations on the London Underground to the man who plants the trees along Oxford Street; from a Pakistani currency trader to a Guardsman at Buckingham Palace - together, these voices paint a vivid, epic and wholly fresh portrait of 21st Century London.

Michael Dunlop is quite simply the greatest road racer on the planet. Brother of William, also an accomplished rider, son of the late Robert and nephew of the late great Joey Dunlop, Michael can fairly claim that racing is in his blood. Now for the first time he talks in depth about his family story, how he got involved in the family business and how he manages to keep getting back on his bike despite all he knows of the deadly risks he encounters every time he crosses the start line.

When Stanton Laird, American geologist, goes prospecting for the Topeka Exploration Company in the savage Australian outback, he finds something a good deal more precious than oil.

When Ted Simon rode 64,000 miles round the world on his 500c Triumph Tiger, he inspired thousands of motorcyclists to begin their own adventures, including Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, who chronicled their travels in Long Way Round. Nearly 30 years later, Ted Simon took to the road again to retrace the epic journey he made in his 40s. He meets up with old friends and acquaintances, revisits old landmarks and locations, and rediscovers himself, as well as the world, along the way.

New Mexico Undersheriff Bill Gastner is presented with a case that appears to have brought big-time crime, including drug gangs, into Posadas County.

When Chris McDougall agreed to take in a donkey from an animal hoarder, he thought it would be no harder than the rest of the adjustments he and his family had made after moving from Philadelphia to the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country. But when he arrived, Sherman was in such bad shape he could barely move, and his hair was coming out in clumps. Chris decided to undertake a radical rehabilitation program designed not only to heal Sherman's body but to heal his mind as well - and so Chris decided to teach Sherman how to run.

An almost-true story about a small town in Texas that ought to exist if it doesn’t, with characters like Sam the Lion, the delectable Jacy, and Ruth Popper, the coach’s wife. Set in a small, dusty, Texas town, The Last Picture Show introduced the characters of Jacy, Duane, and Sonny: teenagers stumbling toward adulthood, discovering the beguiling mysteries of sex and the even more baffling mysteries of love.