Search results for ""Author Brian Turner""

The result of over fifty years’ research, this book celebrates the 120th anniversary of the opening of Britain’s most successful tramway - the eight-mile Tramroad between Blackpool and Fleetwood. Opened in 1898, the line consistently paid a 6½% dividend before being bought by Blackpool Corporation in 1920, and is still running today as part of the resort’s world-famous tramway. Written by the foremost authority on Blackpool trams, the book is illustrated by over 240 black-and-white and colour photographs plus numerous maps and plans.

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An award-winning poet and former infantry team leader in Iraq, Brian Turner combines his devastating recollections as “Sergeant Turner” with his visions of the experiences of generations of warriors in his family—and even those of the enemy—in a work of profound understanding and shocking beauty.

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From Sioux Falls to Khartoum, from Kyoto to Darwin; from the panchayat forests to the Giant’s Causeway; in taxis and at bus stops, in kitchens and sleigh beds, haystacks and airports—people are kissing one another. The sublime kiss. The ambiguous kiss. The broken kiss. The kiss that changes a life. Far from the scripted passion of Hollywood, this uniquely human gesture carries within it the possibility for infinite shades of meaning and it does not stop for anything—not war, revolution or natural disaster. In The Kiss, authors like Nick Flynn, Kristen Radtke and Pico Iyer explore our quest to bridge the gulf between ourselves and others through this fleeting physical connection, and to uncover the depths contained in words like tenderness, passion and love.

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In 2003, Sergeant Brian Turner crossed the line of departure with a convoy of soldiers headed into the Iraqi desert. Now he lies awake each night beside his sleeping wife, imagining himself as a drone aircraft, hovering over the terrains of Bosnia and Vietnam, Iraq and Northern Ireland, the killing fields of Cambodia and the death camps of Europe. In this breathtaking memoir, award-winning poet Brian Turner retraces his war experience—pre-deployment to combat zone, homecoming to aftermath. Free of self-indulgence or self-glorification, his account combines recollection with the imagination's efforts to make reality comprehensible. Across time, he seeks parallels in the histories of others who have gone to war, especially his taciturn grandfather (World War II), father (Cold War), and uncle (Vietnam). Turner also offers something that is truly rare in a memoir of violent conflict—he sees through the eyes of the enemy, imagining his way into the experience of the "other." Through it all, he paints a devastating portrait of what it means to be a soldier and a human being.

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From Sioux Falls to Khartoum, from Kyoto to Darwin; from the panchayat forests to the Giant’s Causeway; in taxis and at bus stops, in kitchens and sleigh beds, haystacks and airports—people are kissing one another. The sublime kiss. The ambiguous kiss. The broken kiss. The kiss that changes a life. Far from the scripted passion of Hollywood, this uniquely human gesture carries within it the possibility for infinite shades of meaning and it does not stop for anything—not war, revolution or natural disaster. In The Kiss, authors like Nick Flynn, Kristen Radtke and Pico Iyer explore our quest to bridge the gulf between ourselves and others through this fleeting physical connection, and to uncover the depths contained in words like tenderness, passion and love.

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Brian Turner's first book of poems, Here, Bullet, was a harrowing, first-hand account of the Iraq War by a soldier-poet. In Phantom Noise he pumps up the volume as he faces and tries to deal with the traumatic aftermath of war. Flashbacks explode the daily hell of Baghdad into the streets and malls of peaceful California, at the same time sending Turner's imagination reeling back to Iraq. If he thought he had written all he could of his Iraq experiences in "Here, Bullet", he was mistaken, for what he saw and felt there affected him so profoundly that more poems had to be written, years later, from a place of apparent safety. Brian Turner writes a powerful poetry of witness, exceptional for its beauty, honesty and skill. Like Keith Douglas's poems from the North African desert in the Second World War, Turner's testament from the war in Iraq offers unflinchingly accurate description but no moral judgement, leaving the reader to draw any conclusions. Repetitive media reports show little of people's daily experience of the war and occupation. In "Phantom Noise", as in "Here, Bullet", we see and feel the devastatingly surreal reality of everyday life and death for soldiers and civilians through the eyes of an eloquent writer who served in the US Army for seven years, with a year's tour of duty in Iraq as an infantry team leader. Shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.

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Pliny's World offers readers a translation of the Natural History's opening books unprecedented for its completeness, accuracy and accessibility. Here, in quirky, often breathless style, Pliny lays the foundation of a hugely influential encyclopedia with coverage of the universe, stars, planets and moon, followed by earth's climate and then its physical and human geography. From Rome as ruling centerpoint, Pliny surveys the known world and its countless peoples in a vast arc from the Atlantic to Sri Lanka, embracing the Danube, Euphrates and Nile lands, Atlas and Caucasus mountains, Germany, Africa, Arabia, India. Passages from later books further illustrating his geographical grasp are appended, on topics as varied as wine, water, trees, birds and fish. Throughout, Pliny's frank expression of strong opinions about religion, distorted human values, abuse of the environment (and more) reveals uncannily modern preoccupations. His work remained an inspirational resource through the Renaissance, and still fascinates today.

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A seasoned writer and teacher of memoir explores both the difficulties inherent in writing about personal trauma and the techniques for doing so in a compelling way.Since 2013, David Chrisinger has taught military veterans, their families, and other trauma survivors how to make sense of and recount their stories of loss and transformation. The lessons he imparts can be used by anyone who has ever experienced trauma, particularly people with a deep need to share that experience in a way that leads to connection and understanding. In Stories Are What Save Us, Chrisinger shows—through writing exercises, memoir excerpts, and lessons he's learned from his students—the most efficient ways to uncover and effectively communicate what you've learned while fighting your life's battles, whatever they may be. Chrisinger explores both the difficulties inherent in writing about personal trauma and the techniques for doing so in a compelling way. Weaving together his journey as a writer, editor, and teacher, he reveals his own deeply personal story of family trauma and abuse and explains how his life has informed his writing. Part craft guide, part memoir, and part teacher's handbook, Stories Are What Save Us presents readers with a wide range of craft tools and storytelling structures that Chrisinger and his students have used to process conflict in their own lives, creating beautiful stories of growth and transformation. Throughout, this profoundly moving, laser-focused book exemplifies the very lessons it strives to teach. A foreword by former soldier and memoirist Brian Turner, author of My Life as a Foreign Country, and an afterword by military wife and memoirist Angela Ricketts, author of No Man's War: Irreverent Confessions of an Infantry Wife, bookend the volume.

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