Chris Turner 
How to Breathe Underwater 
Field Reports from an Age of Radical Change

The essays and reportage in
How to Breathe Underwater offer a panoramic overview of this age of radical change—from the online gambling boom in the Caribbean to Cyberjaya, the Malaysian government’s attempt to build its own Silicon Valley; from video game design to digital-age tabloid journalism to the artistry of 
The Simpsons; and from the fate of the Great Barrier Reef to Cuba’s economic limbo after the fall of the Soviet empire. In field reports that survey the rise of the internet in the 1990s, analyze the changing nature of mass culture in the digital age, and provide a multifaceted look at how human industry is shaping the planet’s foundations, this collection presents a fractal portrait of a society in rapid flux.

 

Chris Turner is the author of four previous books, a nine-time National Magazine Award winner and a sought-after speaker on the rise of the global green economy, as well as a celebrated feature writer for
The Walrus, Canadian Geographic, The Globe & Mail and other major publications. His lively and passionate reportage, along with his incisive essays and shrewd cultural criticism, have for the past fifteen years made essential contributions to the debates on our climate, culture, and technology. They are collected here for the first time.



Praise for How To Breathe Underwater


“Chris Turner is among the best magazine writers on the planet. His writing is so beautiful, wry and well-reported that it’s spellbinding. And spellbreaking: He wakes you up, makes you sit upright and look afresh at our culture, our climate, and where we need to go. This is literary nonfiction at its finest.”—
Clive Thompson,  Wired columnist and author of Smarter Than You Think


‘Chris Turner is the master of long-form journalism in Canada, a smart, funny, and endlessly curious envoy to everywhere. This collection gathers his best work, forging links of meaning in a chain of superb reporting and writing; readers will see many choice pieces and realize, maybe for the first time, that they were all fashioned by the same indefatigable intelligence.’—
Mark Kingwell, the author of A Civil Tongue


‘Whatever you choose to call this kind of stylishly reported, deeply engaged, richly nuanced, gorgeously written nonfiction–saturation reportage, new journalism, longform writing–it without question qualifies as real literature.  It’s the only kind of journalism that gets remembered, and the only kind that produces real change.  Chris Turner has been writing it since he started taking notes.”—
Ian Brown, author of The Boy in the Moon and Globe & Mail feature writer

Cuprins

Essays Include:


‘The Age of Breathing Underwater’

First published in
The Walrus, Oct 2009

Essay mixes 1st-person reporting and history of scuba diving to tell a tale of the scale of the climate crisis.


‘The Simpsons Generation’

First published in
Shift, Oct/Nov 2002

10 years in the life of mass culture, through the lens of
The Simpsons.


‘Why Technology is Failing Us (and how we can fix it)’

First published in
Shift, Sept 2001

A polished barroom rant about the hollow prosperity of the dotcom era and the pressing need to build a new green industrial base.


‘Take Me Down to Paradise City’

Fist published in
Shift, June 2000

In-depth experiential reporting on Cyberjaya, Malaysia’s newborn ‘multimedia supercorridor’ capital


‘The Legend of Pepsi AM’

First published in
This magazine, Nov/Dec 2002

A quixotic quest to locate a can of Pepsi’s short-lived experiment in breakfast beverages, involving a journey to the New Product Showcase & Learning Centre in Ithaca, NY


‘Bearing Witness’

First published in
Eighteen Bridges, Winter 2011

First-person reporting on the fragile ecosystem of the Great Bear Rainforest and the risks posed by the Northern Gateway pipeline


‘Calgary Reconsidered’

First published in
The Walrus, June 2012

Broad discussion of Calgary’s self-image and urban character, from frontier days to today

Despre autor

CHRIS TURNER is one of Canada’s leading writers and speakers on sustainability and the global cleantech industry. His latest book is
The Leap: How to Survive and Thrive in the Sustainable Economy (Random House Canada 2011). He is also the author of the 2007 bestseller
The Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need (Random House), a
Globe & Mail Best Book of the Year and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Nonfiction, the Alberta Literary Award for Nonfiction and the National Business Book Award.

Turner’s first book was the international bestseller
Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a Generation (Random House 2004). His feature writing has earned seven National Magazine Awards and appeared in
Fast Company, Time, Utne Reader, The Walrus, The Globe & Mail, Canadian Geographic and many other publications. He is a featured blogger at MNN.com. He lives in Calgary with his wife, the photographer Ashley Bristowe, and their two children.