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

Why is glass see-through? What makes elastic stretchy? Why does a paper clip bend? These are the sorts of questions that Mark Miodownik is constantly asking himself. A globally renowned materials scientist, Miodownik has spent his life exploring objects as ordinary as an envelope and as unexpected as concrete cloth, uncovering the fascinating secrets that hold together our physical world. From the teacup to the jet engine, the silicon chip to the paper clip, the plastic in our appliances to the elastic in our underpants, our lives are overflowing with materials. Full of enthralling tales of the miracles of engineering that permeate our lives, Stuff Matters will make you see stuff in a whole new way.

• You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself
• Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ
• The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language
• The Gene: An Intimate History
• Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us
• A Little History of Philosophy
• Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
• Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA, and More Tell Us About Crime
• The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics
• The Inexplicable Universe: Unsolved Mysteries