An authoritative and comprehensive overview of the benefits of energy-efficient homes.
A guide to reducing a home’s energy use and climate impact.
DeSimone, an expert on housing market trends and mortgage financing and the author of Welcome to the Agrihood (2020), makes a convincing case for the myriad advantages of a sustainable building. It doesn’t have to be new construction, she says; one can retrofit a century-old home to achieve “net zero” environmental impact status. Investing in environmentally friendly and energy-efficient materials and technologies, she notes, improves the community’s health, comfort, and well-being, while reducing the home’s carbon footprint. She also stresses that the immediate and long-term cost savings of energy-efficient and sustainable homes are substantial; for example, sustainable materials often last longer with less need for expensive maintenance, repair, or replacement. The book also highlights the fact that there are currently more than 2,000 financial incentives available to residential homeowners in the U.S. and Canada, including rebates, specialized financing, and tax breaks for energy efficiency. The author compiles useful information from a wide range of sources to help homeowners and prospective buyers make informed decisions. The text covers green construction techniques; structural materials; heating, cooling, and ventilation; power and water management; renewable energy; certifications such as EnergyStar and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design; assessments and appraisals, financing, and more. The writing often falls into the passive voice and occasionally reads like promotional copy, but overall, it’s a thorough and practical work. DeSimone supports her clear explanations of terms and concepts with more than 60 infographics, tables, and illustrations. Resource lists at the end of each section will enable readers to dig deeper into specific topics. The final chapter helpfully lists rebates and incentive programs by state and province, followed by copious endnotes and a comprehensive index.
An authoritative and comprehensive overview of the benefits of energy-efficient homes.Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 217
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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