Racist thinking – that intelligence is influenced by racial origin, for example – was part of mainstream science a century ago and, surprisingly, is still endorsed by maerick scientists at some of the world’s most respectable institutions today. The myths being perpetuated on genetics, race, IQ and general intelligence are what Black Brain, White Brain challenges – precisely, systematically and in painstaking detail.

In this immensely readable book Evans tackles highly complex subjects, from the origin of humans and the genesis of intelligence to athletic performance and genes, IQ and cleverness, in a fluent and engaging style that makes science accessible and the facts absorbing. Persuasive, without being didactic or sermonising, and lightened by a wry sense of humour, Evans’s text weaves it all together in such a way that one is keen to follow all the threads the better to see the larger tapestry.

Carefully balancing claims, testing dodgy propositions and presenting fairly the theories of modern scientists and evolutionary psychologists, Evans shows just how uniform we are, genetically, as a species and that it’s mainly the environment we grow up and live in that’s the strong determining factor in general intelligence.

The Challenge - Outlawed Paintball Games is the story behind the controversial history of paintball in Tasmania, Australia. It's a story that extends across three decades, is fraught with political debate, tragedy and loss. It's also a story about change, growing acceptance, re-emergence and positive possibilities for the future. The Challenge - Outlawed Paintball Games is also a manual for the registered or aspiring paintball field operator, with detailed maps, game descriptors, equipment lists and safety essentials all ready made for the paintball arena. This manual is a must for any paintball fans, both noobs and seasoned professionals, so go ahead, accept the challenge!

Gavin Evans became obsessed with boxing at the age of six. Infatuated with the likes of Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis, Gavin devoured everything he could find on the sport and determined to become the heavyweight champion of the world, in spite of being the smallest kid in the class. After a less than wildly successful junior career, Gavin resigned himself to the role of spectator rather than participator in the sport he loved, becoming a journalist, often with a ringside seat. But, growing up in South Africa, it was politics that filled the void, becoming Gavin's new Goliath, and it was politics into which he poured his energy and his pent-up frustrations.

Recruited in the ANC underground, Gavin's active role in the struggle against apartheid would frequently place him in far greater danger than he had ever faced in the ring. Detentions, assaults, five-am meetings, spy-catching, murder attempts, all these became a part of Gavin Evans' new world. A memoir of twin passions, boxing and politics, set against the backdrop of South Africa under apartheid, this work is a vivid, incisive and poignant portrait of two disparate yet strangely connected worlds, and of the characters, brave, brutal and often bizarre, who inhabit them both.

Everything you need to know about race (but were afraid to ask), previously published in 2015 as Black Brain, White Brain: Is Intelligence Skin Deep?.

In academic journals and on internet message boards, certain scientists and thinkers are laying siege to one of the great taboos. Could it be, they ask, that racism has a rational basis in science? These ideas are no longer limited to the fringe: race-based studies of intelligence have been discussed by thinkers such as Steven Pinker, Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson. If true, it would provide an intellectual foundation for so many of the attitudes that characterise the right wing, justifying inequality and discrimination. Gavin Evans tackles the nature vs nurture debate head-on, examining the latest studies on how intelligence develops and laying out new discoveries in genetics, palaeontology, archaeology and anthropology to unearth the truth about our shared past.

In doing so, Skin Deep demolishes the pernicious myth that our race is our destiny, and instead reveals what really makes us who we are.