Stuff Matters

This is an author trying to convey his enthusiasm for materials with the reader and he is able to do it in both an enthusiastic and informative tone.
Miodownik combines personal experiences (being stabbed by a knife to delve into metals), musings about a specific material (a chapter on paper musing about note paper, paper bags, glossy paper, tickets, etc) and extensive material science knowledge (all the different material structures of carbon) in an easy to read book.

Really loved the chapter on glass, explaining that, although the Chinese were way ahead of Europe on materials science, they did not start to develop glass (as they were happy sipping tea from porcelain). However, the Romans were not satisfied drinking their expensive wines from opaque containers, so they developed glass.
This knowledge of glass lead to the development of lenses, microscopes and of scientific tools (petri dishes, test tubes, etc), leading Europe into the scientific age.
This knowledge on glass makes me interested to read ‘the Silk Roads' by Peter Frankopan, which explores these ages of development in full.