Most Popular Books by Paul Howard

Irish sports legend Gordon D''Arcy and bestselling author Paul Howard have teamed up with children''s illustrator Ashwin Chacko on this heart-pumping interactive picture book that puts young readers in the boots of a soccer player competing for the championship cup, while teaching them the basic skills of the game along the way! It''s match day. Are you ready? Swing your legs high in the air! Do some high knees! Then face off against your opponents in the game for the ages. Slide on the floor to tackle, run into the box and weave past defenders to score that all important goal. This team is good, so it''s going to take everything you have to win the cup... This fully illustrated picture book is one for children and grown-ups to tackle together.

The hilarious memoir from the funniest man in football! Roddy Collins is a football man - now in the sixth decade of a career as a player (at sixteen clubs), manager (twelve clubs) and commentator. And he is a funny man: an unequalled raconteur with a sharp eye for the absurdities of the professional game and spectacular recall. He has made friends wherever he has gone, along with some high-quality enemies. When John Delaney said he could get Roddy a job if he''d just stop criticising him, Roddy replied that he''d ''rather dig holes in the road''. Now, with the brilliant Paul Howard, Roddy puts it all down on paper for the first time - the adventures, the rows and the craic - in what is not only one of the funniest but also one of the most eye-opening books ever written about professional football.

Praise for Gravity Drive: “I started reading Gravity Drive - Key to the Cosmos after dinner, figuring I''d get a couple chapters into it just to see how it started...and couldn''t put it down. I read the whole thing straight through. Well done! I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the characters. I loved the aliens.” Jerry Oltion - Nebula Award winning author of over 15 novels and 150 published stories, including numerous Authorized Star Trek novels. Author''s comments: If you’re reading this, then hopefully you’ve already read the first two books in the Gravity Drive trilogy. Thank you for returning for Book 3. If you haven’t read the first two then please understand that Gravity Drive 3 - The Scattering was not written as a stand alone novel. It’s the conclusion to the story of a long and difficult path humanity must travel if it wishes to survive for all eternity in the cosmos. It’s the story behind the creation of a revolutionary new deep space propulsion system and the vast impact it has not only on the space program but on humanity and all life on Earth. Warning: Spoiler Alert. Unless you really enjoy spoilers, I suggest you just read the book and let the adventure take over. As I’ve already implied, this third book picks up right were we left off at the end of Gravity Drive 2 - Jason’s Ark. There should be a lot of snoring on The Ark, and the smell should be something awful, but everyone is in deep deep sleep. So all’s well. Wish I could say the same for Mother Earth. The Universe just isn’t quite done with her yet, and it’s not looking promising. It’s looking pretty nice on Mars though. Maybe time for a vacation there? Or maybe Earth’s Moon? Don’t forget about our buddies Al and Taka, floating out there all alone in the darkness of space with just their old music and a sarcastic computer to keep them company. These two are just destined to get into trouble, but see some really cool things along the way (think: what’s your favorite all time life form?). I guarantee it. Anyway, it’s about time for humanity to start doing some serious space exploration and maybe make some new friends out there, or at least see some really cool sights and interesting life forms. Oh, you’re going to love some of our new friends and I’m pretty sure my fans will be writing to tell me how one of them definitely kept them up at night. So for those people I say, you’re going to enjoy spending some serious time with your old friends the Paxians again. If only everyone was as quietly brilliant, kind and easy going as these guys. Can you tell that I’m trying really hard to give you an idea of what might happen without spoiling all the fun surprises waiting for you? So let me just say, you’re really going to love how the story wraps up, and it might even surprise you. Thanks for coming back for the finale of the Gravity Drive Trilogy. Paul

Plop, a baby Barn Owl, is afraid of the dark. Dark is nasty he says and so he won''t go hunting with his parents. Mrs. Barn Owl sends him down from his nest-hole to ask about the dark. He meets a scout out camping and a black cat who takes him exploring, and realizes that dark is super after all.

"Investigates the so-called ''Battle of Pease River'' and December 1860 capture of Cynthia Ann Parker, contending that what became, in Texans'' collective memory, a battle that broke Comanche military power was actually a massacre, mainly of women. Questions traditional knowledge and historiographic interpretations of the history of Texas"--Provided by publisher.

The lives of American cowboys have been both real and mythic. This work explores cowboy music dress, humour, films and literature in sixteen essays and a bibliography. These essays demonstrate that the American cowboy is a knight of the road who, with a large hat, tall boots and a big gun, rode into legend and into the history books.

Discover a brand-new slipcased hardback edition of the beloved classic picture book story about overcoming fears, featuring Plop the Baby Owl - the perfect gift for young readers. Plop, the baby owl, is like every barn owl there ever was, except for one thing - he is afraid of the dark ... The dark is brimming with excitement and magic. As Plop ventures into the night, he meets a boy who shows him fireworks, a black cat who takes him exploring, a girl who tells him about Father Christmas, among other surprising discoveries... · A sumptuous slipcased hardback edition of the much-loved abridged picture book. · This uplifting story about finding the courage to face your fears has been beloved of parents and children for decades - and its message of resilience is as timely as ever. · Filled with Jill Tomlinson''s gentle humour and heart-warming illustrations from Paul Howard.

Praise for Gravity Drive: “I started reading Gravity Drive-Key to the Cosmos after dinner, figuring I''d get a couple chapters into it just to see how it started...and couldn''t put it down. I read the whole thing straight through. Well done! I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the characters. I loved the aliens.” Jerry Oltion - Nebula Award winning author of over 15 novels and 150 published stories, including numerous Authorized Star Trek novels. Note-This is a work of fiction: Gravity Drive 2 - Jason''s Ark continues where the first book, Gravity Drive - Key to the Cosmos ends. Well sort of. The story picks up from book one but it''s about 6,000 years later. Humanity got it''s act together, stopped the senseless wars between countries and cultures, and together healed the ecosystems of Earth. Amazing what you can accomplish when you stop hosting wars. OK...we''re getting into SPOILER ALERT territory, so you''ve been warned. So there''s this wandering black hole left over from when our Milky Way Galaxy ripped off another smaller Galaxy a really long time ago as it came cruising by, minding it''s own business, but not paying attention to where it was going. That''s what happens when you don''t pay attention. That powerful little bugger really does a number on Earth and it''s life when it comes looking for a bit of payback (not really of course. It''s a black hole. It doesn''t care. It''s totally indifferent as is the rest of the Universe). Then, just when you think things are going to get better, WRONG. The Universe isn''t done with us yet. Things get much worse for Earth. Mars is starting to look pretty nice though. Good time for a visit. Anyway, as things really start to go downhill, the hero from our first book (not Howard he''s just a smart engineer, but our real hero) Jason, comes up with a plan to save the day (assuming a day is all eternity). This is the part where you look at the title of the book and go "Ahhhhhh, I get it." OK, I''m going to stop now because I really hate the idea of ruining the best parts of the story for you. I''ve done enough damage so please forgive me and I hope you enjoy reading book 2 as much as I enjoyed writing it. And thank you again for your excellent taste in authors. You readers are the best. Paul

Compares bituminous coal, anthracite, and briquets. Gives the results of tests and presents data for determining relative value of fuels for use in house heating boilers.

''Children in Foster Care" will be a valuable book for anyone interested in the welfare of children. This book presents the findings of a study conducted in South Australia between 1998-1999 tracking children who entered foster care during this period. It will be an important resource for policy makers who can learn from the South Australian study in order to improve decision making.

Ross O''Carroll-Kelly is broke and out of love. His wife has gone to America, taking his daughter with him; his mother has become a celebrity chef on daytime television, with a particular skill for handling phallic ingredients; and his father continues to languish in Mountjoy Jail. To cap it all, Immaculata, a Nigerian girl whom his wife, Sorcha, has been sponsoring by direct debit for fifteen years, has turned up on his doorstep. Things couldn''t get worse. But the long road back begins high in the Pyrenees, in the tax haven of Andorra, where Ross must spread the Gospel of rugby to the strange, primitive natives who have only ever heard of soccer, skiing and duty free shopping. There he meets Conchita, a beautiful, sultry psychoanalyst, who persuades him to look inwards and find out what it is that makes him tick. Sorry, thick.

How does learning transform us biologically? What learning processes do we share with bacteria, jellyfish and monkeys? Is technology impacting on our evolution and what might the future hold for the learning brain? These are just some of the questions Paul Howard-Jones explores on a fascinating journey through 3.5 billion years of brain evolution, and discovers what it all means for how we learn today. Along the way, we discover how the E. coli in our stomachs learn to find food why a little nap can help bees find their way home the many ways that action, emotion and social interaction have shaped our ability to learn the central role of learning in our rise to top predator. An accessible writing style and numerous illustrations make Evolution of the Learning Brain an enthralling combination of biology, neuroscience and educational insight. Howard-Jones provides a fresh perspective on the nature of human learning that is exhaustively researched, exploring the implications of our most distant past for twenty-first-century education.