Concrete Reveries by Mark Kingwell

Mark Kingwell, cultural theorist and University of Toronto philosophy professor, has just published a new book called Concrete Reveries. Although it is not really about concrete, it sounds like an interesting read – dealing with the ideas of cities as creative works in progress. I heard Kingwell speak at a lecture at Harbourfront in Toronto recently, and he has a unique yet understandable way of helping you see large issues. He uses "the urban experience to illustrate the dynamic between concreteness and abstraction that operates within us," says the publisher, Penguin Group Canada.

"Any material becomes the sum of its treatments," Kingwell says in the introduction to the book. I think this is particularly true of concrete.