Showing results by narrator "Nikos Andronicos" in All Categories

'A comic odyssey, a crime thriller and a nuts-and-bolts account of making art. Not bad for one book!' PAUL KELLY It's 1991, and Australian singer-songwriters Mick Woods and Drew Lovelock - 'tall and skinny, rock-star-wrecked handsome' - haven't yet managed to crack the big-time. But that's soon...

Meet Jimmy Flick. He's not like other kids - he's both too fast and too slow. Jimmy's mother, Paula, is the only one who can manage him. She teaches him how to count sheep so that he can fall asleep. She holds him tight enough to stop his cells spinning. It is only Paula who can keep Jimmy out of his father's way. But when Jimmy's world falls apart, he has to navigate life on his own and make things right.

Some incentives are obvious, but many of the most powerful incentives are accidental, and invisible even to those who designed them. Some are tame - and some are most definitely not. Whether it’s bounties for criminals or Instagrammable meals, training your dog or saving the planet, incentives regularly backfire, go missing, mutate and evolve. Without oversight, their unintended consequences can have very global effects. Here, economist Jason Murphy uncovers the huge incentive systems we take for granted and turns them inside out.