Stuff Matters

In Stuff Matters, Miodownik explores the materials he encounters most days, from steel in his razor to the foam in his sneakers. With an infectious enthusiasm for everything from paper and glass to chocolate, Miodownik explains how concrete cloth works or why a banana is less likely to fall apart than an apple. His journey through the world of stuff leads him places no nonfiction book has gone before, from a shipyard in Scotland where engineers are taught to read blueprints with their hands instead of their eyes to the Swiss town where chocolate is made by hand.