Paul West

From the author of Nightwood, Djuna Barnes has written a book that is all that she was, and must still be vulgar, beautiful, defiant, witty, poetic, and a little mad.Told as through a kaleidoscope, the chronicle of the Ryder family is a bawdy tale of eccentricity and anarchy; through sparkling detours and pastiche, cult author Djuna Barnes spins an audacious, intricate story of sexuality, power, and praxis.Ryder, like its namesake, Wendell Ryder, is many things—lyric, prose, fable, illustration; protagonist, bastard, bohemian, polygamist. Born in the 1800s to infamous nonconformist Sophia Grieve Ryder, Wendell’s search for identity takes him from Connecticut to England to multifarious digressions on morality, tradition, and gender. Censored upon its first release in 1928, Ryder’s portrayal of sexuality remains revolutionary despite the passing of time and the expurgations in the text, preserved by Barnes in protest of the war “blindly raged against the written word.” The weight of Wendell’s story endures despite this censorship, as his drive to assume the masculine roles of patriarch and protector comes at the sacrifice of the women around him.A vanguard modernist, Djuna Barnes has been called the patron literary saint of Bohemia, and her second novel, Ryder, evinces her cutting wit and originality. The nonlinear structure and polyphonic narration pull the reader into Barnes’ harlequin world like a riptide, echoing the melodic cascade of James Joyce’s Ulysses and the avant-garde feminism of Dorothy Richardson. The novel is a rhapsodic saga that could have come only from Barnes’ pen—and politics—as impactful today upon at its first pressing, a document of sexual revolution and censorship.

For Paul West, a meaningful life is one built around food and community. In The Edible Garden Cookbook & Growing Guide, Paul shows you how easy it is to grow and cook some of your own food, no matter how much space you have. Paul shares practical gardening advice, with guides on building a no-dig garden, composting and keeping chooks, and an A-Z guide of the veggies that are easiest to grow. There are also more than 50 of Paul's favourite family recipes - simple, produce-driven dishes that are bursting with freshness and flavour. And then there are ideas for fun food activities to do with your community, whether it's hosting a pickle party or passata day, brewing beer with some mates or whipping up a batch of homemade sausages. The Edible Garden Cookbook & Growing Guide is a celebration of real food and vibrant community. It will inspire you to grow, cook and eat with those you love - and find real meaning along the way.

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is an amazing technique that allies a versatile methodology (that allows measurement of samples in liquid, vacuum or air) to imaging with unprecedented resolution. But it goes one step further than conventional microscopic techniques; it allows us to make measurements of magnetic, electrical or mechanical properties of the widest possible range of samples, with nanometre resolution. This book will demystify AFM for the reader, making it easy to understand, and to use. It is written by authors who together have more than 30 years experience in the design, construction, and use of AFMs and will explain why the microscopes are made the way they are, how they should be used, what data they can produce, and what can be done with the data. Illustrative examples from the physical sciences, materials science, life sciences, nanotechnology and industry demonstrate the different capabilities of the technique.

Atomic force microscopy is an amazing technique that allies a versatile methodology (that allows measurement of samples in liquid, vacuum or air) to imaging with unprecedented resolution. But it goes one step further than conventional microscopic techniques; it allows us to make measurements of magnetic, electrical or mechanical properties of the widest possible range of samples, with nanometre resolution. This book will demystify AFM for the reader, making it easy to understand, and to use. It is written by authors who together have more than 30 years experience in the design, construction and use of AFMs and will explain why the microscopes are made the way they are, how they should be used, what data they can produce, and what can be done with the data. Illustrative examples from the physical sciences, materials science, life sciences, nanotechnology and industry illustrate the different capabilities of the technique.

Known for wrapping readers in his historical web, Paul West, in his marvelous novel Cheops: A Cupboard for the Sun, turns his attention to the 4th Dynasty (approx. 2680 BC) of ancient Egypt. Here, we find the pharaoh Cheops, building the great pyramids at Giza, surrounded by workers and solar boats. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, "a hundred thousand men were made to toil constantly for him," and, as Herodotus claimed, Egypt was "plunged into all manner of wickedness.' In Cheops, West delightfully has Herodotus transported back in time, to meet the great pharaoh face to face. Nearing death, getting ready for his final "transportation to the stars," the blind Cheops is obsessed with preparing for his end. All the while, the intrigues of his daughters, sons, wives, and courtiers are revealed, uncovering murder, incest, and rebellion. Perhaps most intriguing is the overarching narration by Osiris, god of the Nile. While managing to "pipe" the music of English composer Frederick Delius into the dying Cheops's ears, he comments on this swarm of events with hilarious and humane authority. Profound and entertaining, Cheops: A Cupboard for the Sun is perhaps Paul West's greatest novel yet.

John Henry "Doc" Holliday was Southern gentry by birth, a dentist by training, sharp shooter and lawman by design, and gambler by default, being by disposition and circumstance -- he contracted tuberculosis soon after graduating from dental school -- unable to practice dentistry formally. In this remarkable historical novel, Paul West breathes new, thrilling life into Doc and his cohorts, including "Big Nose" Kate Elder and the infamous brothers Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp. He recounts in heart-stopping detail the events leading up to the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral -- those thirty seconds of terror and confusion -- and the weeks of bloody retribution that followed, which Doc survived only by the grace of his good luck and notoriously quick trigger finger. In West?s Old West, the thin line between the lawless and the lawmakers is lethal, and the tragic inevitability of these legends? lives is touched with pathos and unsentimental poignancy. West stunningly evokes the shadow of death that is never far from the young gunslinger, racked by coughing fits that will kill him if a bullet does not. But Doc Holliday?s image as cold-blooded, gun-toting cowboy belies his profound intelligence. Years of correspondence between Doc and his cousin Mattie, a nun, have long since been destroyed. In West?s re-creation of their intense epistolary exchanges, a reflective and passionate Doc Holliday emerges, a man acutely aware of the madness of his world. Since the days of the Wild West, Doc Holliday and his contemporaries have been immortalized in our collective consciousness. In O.K., Paul West turns inside out our long-cherished assumptions about who these bold and deadly men were, using his chameleon-like ability to absorb larger-than-life figures and an historical era and make them his own. West displays here his masterful ability to transcend time and place in a characterization of Doc Holliday as timeless as the legendary man himself. Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "possibly our finest living stylist in English" and considered "one of the most original talents in American fiction" by The New York Times Book Review, West proves yet again why praise for his work is so richly deserved.

Eight years ago acclaimed novelist Paul West presented a warmly received memoir of his mother, My Mother's Music. Revisiting the scene now, Paul West delivers in his 40th book an equally remarkable memoir of his father, a half-blinded, shell-shocked veteran of three years of trench warfare during "The War to End All Wars." But the time recounted mostly occupies 1939 to 1945, while ten-year-old Paul grows to fifteen. Together, father and son play war games, guarding the English coast from foxholes under the kitchen table, or watching as real Nazi bombers on moonlit nights pass overhead. The father, meanwhile, is forever instructing the son in the details of his own experience. In this engaging memoir, Paul West recreates his own youth, and gives us in twenty-five chiseled chapters a view of two lives evoking the deep effects of war, and conveying the distance between those who survive its devastation, and those who must bear its consequence.

Simon Hardman is an ex drug enforcement agent living a secluded life in a Florida tourist town called Destin. An email from his sister tells him about his high school girlfriend being shot down and is hanging on by a thread. She was in the process of prosecuting a brother of one the drug gangs in the area. It turns out he is associated with the number one drug cartel in the world. It takes all of Simon's years of training to take down the people responsible for the shooting, along with the help of close friends still with the agency. The twist in all of this is his girlfriend had twin daughters who are now teenagers and they are Simon's.

Simon Hardman is an ex drug enforcement agent living a secluded life in a Florida tourist town called Destin. An email from his sister tells him about his high school girlfriend being shot down and is hanging on by a thread. She was in the process of prosecuting a brother of one the drug gangs in the area. It turns out he is associated with the number one drug cartel in the world. It takes all of Simon's years of training to take down the people responsible for the shooting, along with the help of close friends still with the agency. The twist in all of this is his girlfriend had twin daughters who are now teenagers and they are Simon's.

What was the Peruvian brand manager thinking of when he named his delicious tuna 'Grated Fanny'? Do Italians cleaning their bathrooms with 'Smac' or 'Toke' scrub with wilder arm movements and wider eyes? And how do you fancy tucking in to a packet of 'Chubi' or a bar of 'Plopp' chocolate with your afternoon tea? Shelf Life is a stunning full-colour collection of over 100 of the more, shall we say, colourful products gracing the shelves of the global marketplace. More characterful than any global mega-brand, the local goods gathered here don't kowtow to foreign marketing concerns. From 'Puke' playing cards to 'Climax' disinfectant, 'Colon' washing powder to 'Cocagne' mackerel fillets and 'Kack liquorice, this is a bitingly funny and stylish celebration of glorious misadventures in translation.

Paul West creates a glorious, powerful Sun King of Egypt, bent on a death worthy of his great pyramid at Giza. Known for wrapping readers in his historical web, Paul West, in his marvelous, new novel, turns his attention to the 4th Dynasty (approx. 2680 BC) of ancient Egypt. Here, we find the pharaoh Cheops, building the great pyramids at Giza, surrounded by workers and solar boats. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, "a hundred thousand men were made to toil constantly for him," and, as Herodotus claimed, Egypt was "plunged into all manner of wickedness." In Cheops, West delightfully has Herodotus transported back in time, to meet the great pharaoh, face to face. Nearing death, getting ready for his final "transportation to the stars," the blind Cheops is obsessed with preparing for his end. All the while, the intrigues of his daughters, sons, wives, and courtiers are revealed, uncovering murder, incest, and rebellion. Most intriguing is the overarching narration told by Osiris, god of the Nile, who comments on this swarm of events with hilarious and humane authority. Profound and entertaining, Cheops: A Cupboard for the Sun is perhaps Paul West's greatest novel yet.

The Dry Danube, Paul West's nineteenth novel, is a uniquely daring, dazzling, bravura performance by an acknowledged master. The Dry Danube, presents Hitler's "memoir" of the years he spent as a failed art student in Vienna, just before World War One. Each of the book's four parts is a solid raving block of barbaric flourishes, free of paragraphing in its headlong rush of disgorged spleen. "I wanted to get at H. before the violence sets in," West remarked: "But most of all I wanted to get the motion of his mind, as seen by another." Hitler spews his rage over his blighted career and his desperate wooing of Treischnitt and Kolberhoff, "proud famous painters both." These "two men so important in my young life, yet so aloof from me," he tries to befriend, though "I would have had more success groveling before a statue of Frederick the Great or Charlemagne." ("These men do not so much control Art, they are Art. It makes you sick to think of it.") A risky venture, The Dry Danube stands a triumph -- baroque, chilling ("This was not the last the world would hear of me"), and scathingly humorous at the same instant.

This volume brings together two of Paul West's best books: his critically acclaimed "Words for a Deaf Daughter" (1970), a nonfiction account of West's deaf and brain-damaged daughter Mandy at age eight, and "Gala" (1976), a novel about a writer named Wight Deulius who brings his handicapped teenage daughter Michaela from England to America for a visit. While Words is an account of Mandy's diagnosis and treatment, Gala is "the scenario of a wish-fulfillment" (as West writes in the preface), a continuation of the father and daughter's joyful investigation of the richness of life and its amazing possibilities. Ranging across natural history and astronomy in his effort to understand his daughter's handicap, West finds in Mandy/Michaela an irrepressible and unpredictable guide to the mysteries of the universe. Brought together in the same volume, the books also allow a unique look at how nonfiction and fiction techniques can be used to the same ends in the hands of a master of prose.