Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Manmade World by Mark Miodownik
Beginning with a photo of himself drinking a cup of tea on a London rooftop, Miodownik (who is the director of the wonderfully named “Institute of Making” at University College London) proceeds to examine ten objects in the photo and, with humor and insight, tell us why we should care about the physical properties of steel, concrete, chocolate (which by the way, he considers to be “one of our greatest engineering creations”), glass and several other materials. Miodownik is a gifted storyteller who makes complex science sound as fascinating as it actually is.