These treatises on stuff and materials and interesting items or snapshots in time are called "microhistories" and I have to admit that they're really one of the only nonfiction that I actually look for to read. I'm not alone - they're hugely popular. This one should be a lovely addition to the library's collection.
Stuff Matters
Mark Miodownik
ISBN: 9780544236042
Read September 27, 2014
Miodownik starts with a traumatic childhood experience - getting slashed across the back by a homemade razor knife weilded by a would-be-mugger - and uses that as his starting point for his fascination with materials sciences and with the properties of the natural and built environments we surround ourselves with.
Each chapter deals with a different material, although the chapters themselves are named for a property that the author associates with that material (minor quibble: it would have made it easier to reference and cross-check if he'd included both association and metal)
For reference, the chapters are:
Indomitable (Steel)
Trusted (Paper)
Fundamental (Concrete)
Delicious (Chocolate)
Marvelous (Aerogels)
Imaginative (Plastics, specifically collodion)
Invisible (Glass)
Unbreakable (Carbon/Graphite/graphene/Diamond/Carbon-fiber/nanotubes)
Refined (Porcelain)
Immortal (Bio-materials and "cyborg" parts)
Synthesis (Materials Science 101)
Miodownik has a fun and breezy writing style, his examples are delightful, and the chapters are just long enough to get his point and his fascination (obsession?) across without being belabored. It's obvious that he's English, but that's a bonus for me, and doesn't impact on the universal nature of scientific and material interest. I finished this slim collection off with the hope that it sells well and the author enjoyed the writing process, so that perhaps there will be a sequel!
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