Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World

Stuff Matters is pop material science, organized around ten or so everyday materials visible in a photo of the author in his rooftop garden. The tone is light and fluffy, without much substance, as Miodownik makes his point that micro and nano scale structures that create the material properties of the macro world that we inhabit, skips through the history of the material, and how we find it pleasing today. The chapter on carbon, with a futuristic look towards the properties of graphene is the strongest. The chapter on plastic is a tragic waste, a fictionalized tale around late 19th century celluloid, rather than any kind of thoughtful look at the most innovative, flexible, and environmentally dangerous of modern materials.