Search results for ""Author Bruce King""

The poet and author Robert Graves (1895-1985), now best known for his historical novels "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God", thanks to the legendary BBC TV adaptation, was recognised as one of the better Edwardian and First World War poets, although for a time his work was somewhat sidelined by the Modernists. Graves' writings and life belong to a period where the values and beliefs of the past were rejected or no longer felt sustainable: his unconventional life, bizarre domination by a series of strong-willed women and search for poetic rejuvenation through a series of muses can be seen as a rejection of Victorian values', caused by his childhood experiences and his service in the First World War, where he was seriously wounded on the Somme. His autobiography "Good-Bye to All That", published in 1929, is one of the landmark memoirs of the war in the trenches on the Western Front. By the time of his death, Graves was internationally famous, seen as one of the 20th century's best poets, and whose prose works were sold all over the world. This first single-volume biography over a decade will shed new light on this intriguing and unparalleled life.

Read more less

Finally, Bruce King, acclaimed literary critic, presents his autobiography and offers fascinating insights into his life as bon vivant and literary critic.

Read more less

Soak up carbon into beautiful, healthy buildings that heal the climate "Green buildings" that slash energy use and carbon emissions are all the rage, but they aren't enough. The hidden culprit is embodied carbon — the carbon emitted when materials are mined, manufactured, and transported — comprising some 10% of global emissions. With the built environment doubling by 2030, buildings are a carbon juggernaut threatening to overwhelm the climate. It doesn't have to be this way. Like never before in history, buildings can become part of the climate solution. With biomimicry and innovation, we can pull huge amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere and lock it up as walls, roofs, foundations, and insulation. We can literally make buildings out of the sky with a massive positive impact. The New Carbon Architecture is a paradigm-shifting tour of the innovations in architecture and construction that are making this happen. Office towers built from advanced wood products; affordable, low-carbon concrete alternatives; plastic cleaned from the oceans and turned into building blocks. We can even grow insulation from mycelium. A tour de force by the leaders in the field, The New Carbon Architecture will fire the imagination of architects, engineers, builders, policy makers, and everyone else captivated by the possibility of architecture to heal the climate and produce safer, healthier, and more beautiful buildings.

Read more less

“Net Zero” has been an effective rallying cry for the green building movement, signalling a goal of having every building generate at least as much energy as it uses. Enormous strides have been made in improving the performance of every type of new building, and even more importantly, renovating the vast and energy-inefficient collection of existing buildings in every country. If we can get every building to net-zero energy use in the next few decades, it will be a huge success, but it will not be enough. In Build Beyond Zero, carbon pioneers Bruce King and Chris Magwood re-envision buildings as one of our most practical and affordable climate solutions instead of leading drivers of climate change. They provide a snapshot of a beginning and map towards a carbon-smart built environment that acts as a CO2 filter. Professional engineers, designers, and developers are invited to imagine the very real potential for our built environment to be a site of net carbon storage, a massive drawdown pool that could help to heal our climate. The authors, with the help of other industry experts, show the importance of examining what components of an efficient building (from windows to solar photovoltaics) are made with, and how the supply chains deliver all those products and materials to a jobsite. Build Beyond Zero looks at the good and the bad of how we track carbon (Life Cycle Assessment), then takes a deep dive into materials (with a focus on steel and concrete) and biological architecture, and wraps up with education, policy and governance, circular economy, and where we go in the next three decades. In Build Beyond Zero, King and Magwood show how buildings are culprits but stand poised to act as climate healers. They offer an exciting vision of climate-friendly architecture, along with practical advice for professionals working to address the carbon footprint of our built environment.

Read more less

From New National to World English Literature offers a personal perspective on the evolution of a major cultural movement that began with decolonisation, continued with the assertion of African, West Indian, Commonwealth, and other literatures, and has evolved through postcolonial to world or international English literature. Bruce King's extensive Introduction discusses the personalities, writers, issues, and contexts of what he considers the most important change in culture since Modernism. The Introduction also explains the forty-five essays and reviews he has selected from his publications to illustrate the development, stages, and major national literatures, authors, and themes. Special attention is given to Nigerian, West Indian, Australian, Indian, and Pakistani literature. Topics and issues include: "Derry" Jeffares organising Commonwealth and Anglo-Irish studies, the emergence and aesthetics of African literature, the question of the existence of a "Nigerian literature", the place of the new universities in decolonising culture, the influence of the Rockefeller Foundation, the contrasting models of American and Irish literatures, ethnicity as response , the changing nature of exile and diasporas, the role of Jewish writers, minorities, Muslim objections to free speech, The Satanic Verses controversy, traditionalism versus modernism, the dangers of cultural assertion, and the relationships between nationalism and internationalism. Authors discussed include Chinua Achebe, Ahmed Ali, Margaret Atwood, David Dabydeen, K N Daruwalla, Nissim Ezekiel, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Almagir Hashmi, Attia Hosain, A D Hope, Adil Jussawalla, Arun Kolatkar, Hanif Kureishi, Dom Moraes, Frank Moorhouse, V S Naipaul, Abioseh Nicol, Gabriel Okara, Mike Phillips, Mordechai Richler, Salman Rushdie, Wole Soyinka, Garth St Omer, Kamila Shamsie, Randolph Stow, Jeet Thayil, and Derek Walcott.

Read more less