This latest installment of "Book Briefs" ? the series of occasional posts featuring short first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that publishers send to me for consideration on this blog ? features six books in three pairs. Obviously, these briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than those that end up as long reviews.

Two "Green" Books:Green Reconstruction: A Curricular Toolkit for the Built Environment edited by Reinhold Martin, Jacob R. Moore, Jordan Steingard | Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture | September 2022 | 7-1/4 x 10-1/2 inches | 266 pages | $0 (available as a PDF)The Buell Center describes Green Reconstruction as "an outline, an open work, for the repair of a world ravaged by three intersecting crises ? of mutual care, of racial oppression, and of climate, all intersecting in turn with economic inequality." As the subtitle of the book makes clear, its aim is reworking education in the planning and design of the built environment so architects and urban planners could help in realizing ambitious proposals like the Green New Deal. The book is no less ambitious (Reinhold Martin, in a presentation of the book at the Buell Center in September, described the need to "redefine all professionals as public servants rather than as private entrepreneurs"), though it balances an overarching belief in the need f...