Stuff Matters
Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World
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Stuff Matters
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Narrated by:
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Matthew Waterson
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By:
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Mark Miodownik
About this listen
A New York Times Bestseller
An eye-opening adventure deep inside the everyday materials that surround us, packed with surprising stories and fascinating science
Why is glass see-through? What makes elastic stretchy? Why does a paper clip bend? Why does any material look and behave the way it does? 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.
In Stuff Matters, Miodownik entertainingly examines the materials he encounters in a typical morning, from the steel in his razor and the graphite in his pencil to the foam in his sneakers and the concrete in a nearby skyscraper. He offers a compendium of the most astounding histories and marvelous scientific breakthroughs in the material world, including:
- The imprisoned alchemist who saved himself from execution by creating the first European porcelain.
- The hidden gem of the Milky Way, a planet five times the size of Earth, made entirely of diamond.
- Graphene, the thinnest, strongest, stiffest material in existence—only a single atom thick—that could be used to make entire buildings sensitive to touch.
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.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
At every moment, within our bodies and all around us, trillions of microscopic combatants are waging a war that shapes our health and life on Earth. Countless times per second, viruses known as phages attack and destroy bacteria while leaving all other life forms, including us, unscathed. Vastly outnumbering the viruses that do us harm, phages power ecosystems, drive evolutionary innovation, and harbor a remarkable capacity to heal life-threatening infections when conventional antibiotics fail. Yet most of us have never heard of them, thinking of viruses only as enemies to be feared.
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5 out of 5 stars
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No brainer
- By Paul on 10-11-23
By: Tom Ireland
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The Game Changers
- How Playing Games Changed the World and Can Change You Too
- By: Tim Clare
- Narrated by: Tim Clare
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 12
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 12
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12
In this fascinating and entertaining look at games throughout history, Tim Clare explores the legal highs of a good dice roll, the thrills of a predatory race game, and the tactile pleasures of the games that age with us through our lives. Drawing on Roman anti-cheating devices, organised crime card games, and dice contests that link Chaucer to Warren G, The Game Changers will show you why games are more popular now than ever, and how playing them helps us win more often, become better losers and stay one step ahead - on and off the board. Through play, we become fully ourselves.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stories will draw you in.
- By Debra A. on 12-07-24
By: Tim Clare
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Empireland
- How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain
- By: Sathnam Sanghera, Marlon James - foreword
- Narrated by: Homer Todiwala, Marlon James
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
A best-selling journalist’s illuminating tour through the hidden legacies and modern realities of British empire that exposes how much of the present-day United Kingdom is actually rooted in its colonial past. Empireland boldly and lucidly makes the case that in order to understand America, we must first understand British imperialism. Empire—whether British or otherwise—informs nearly everything we do.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Important history
- By Maggie A. on 07-02-23
By: Sathnam Sanghera, and others
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Color
- A Natural History of the Palette
- By: Victoria Finlay
- Narrated by: Victoria Finlay
- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist’s palette, Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages, illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself. Color is full of extraordinary people, events, and anecdotes—painted all the more dazzling by Finlay’s engaging style. The colors that craft our world have never looked so bright.
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5 out of 5 stars
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amazing
- By Jaime Manzo on 07-15-23
By: Victoria Finlay
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The Only Technical Analysis Book You Will Ever Need
- By: Brian Hale
- Narrated by: Rush Stone
- Length: 4 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
Here’s the “old-fashioned” strategy that billionaire Warren Buffett uses to earn 20 percent returns on his stock investments year after year.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Worthless drivel
- By JOHN E JANIEC on 08-22-23
By: Brian Hale
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On the Origin of Time
- Stephen Hawking's Final Theory
- By: Thomas Hertog
- Narrated by: Ethan Kelly
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his extraordinary life was how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life. In order to solve this mystery, Hawking studied the big bang origin of the universe, but his early work ran into a crisis when the math predicted many big bangs producing a multiverse—countless different universes, most of which would be far too bizarre to harbor life.
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4 out of 5 stars
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1960 ’s to 1980’s Re-Hash of History
- By Ron A. Parsons on 11-13-23
By: Thomas Hertog
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The Experience Machine
- How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality
- By: Andy Clark
- Narrated by: Andy Clark
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
For as long as we’ve studied human cognition, we’ve believed that our senses give us direct access to the world. What we see is what’s really there—or so the thinking goes. But new discoveries in neuroscience and psychology have turned this assumption on its head. What if rather than perceiving reality passively, your mind actively predicts it?
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3 out of 5 stars
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About halfway through, it became propaganda
- By Jesse Helton on 08-13-23
By: Andy Clark
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The Earth Transformed
- An Untold History
- By: Peter Frankopan
- Narrated by: Peter Frankopan
- Length: 29 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
Global warming is one of the greatest dangers mankind faces today. Even as temperatures increase, sea levels rise, and natural disasters escalate, our current environmental crisis feels difficult to predict and understand. But climate change and its effects on us are not new. In a bold narrative that spans centuries and continents, Peter Frankopan argues that nature has always played a fundamental role in the writing of history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Thoughtful History of A Complex Phenomenon
- By Lucy A. Pithecus on 04-21-23
By: Peter Frankopan
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Becoming Kin
- An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future
- By: Patty Krawec, Nick Estes - foreword
- Narrated by: Patty Krawec
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Story5 out of 5 stars 72
The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. Settlers dominated and divided, but Indigenous peoples won't just send them all "home." Weaving her own story with the story of her ancestors and with the broader themes of creation, replacement, and disappearance, Krawec helps listeners see settler colonialism through the eyes of an Indigenous writer.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Relearning History
- By Bo Buxton on 02-05-23
By: Patty Krawec, and others
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The Embarrassment of Riches
- An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age
- By: Simon Schama
- Narrated by: Mike Cooper
- Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 5
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 4
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Story4 out of 5 stars 4
Simon Schama explores the mysterious contradictions of the Dutch nation that invented itself from the ground up, attained an unprecedented level of affluence, and lived in constant dread of being corrupted by happiness. Drawing on a vast array of period documents and sumptuously reproduced art, Schama recreates in precise detail a nation's mental state. He tells of bloody uprisings and beached whales, of the cult of hygiene and the plague of tobacco, of thrifty housewives and profligate tulip-speculators.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great!
- By Noe on 12-05-24
By: Simon Schama
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What an Owl Knows
- The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds
- By: Jennifer Ackerman
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ackerman
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 163
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 141
For millennia, owls have captivated and intrigued us. Our fascination with these mysterious birds was first documented more than thirty thousand years ago in the Chauvet Cave paintings in southern France. With their forward gaze and quiet flight, owls are often a symbol of wisdom, knowledge, and foresight. But what does an owl really know? And what do we really know about owls? Jennifer Ackerman illuminates the rich biology and natural history of these birds and reveals remarkable new scientific discoveries about their brains and behavior.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The dedication and fierce commitment of the author
- By Michael G. T. Thompson on 12-17-24
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The Metaverse
- Building the Spatial Internet / Fully Revised and Updated Edition
- By: Matthew Ball
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 6
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Story4 out of 5 stars 6
In this fully revised and updated edition of his internationally best-selling book, pioneering theorist and entrepreneur Matthew Ball goes beyond the hype cycle to present a definitive account of the future of the internet. The Metaverse, according to Ball’s industry-shaping definition, is a persistent and interconnected network of 3D virtual worlds that will eventually serve as the gateway to most online experiences and underpin much of the physical world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Matthew Ball does it again!
- By Bubba Gaeddert on 10-01-24
By: Matthew Ball
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Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here
- The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
- By: Jonathan Blitzer
- Narrated by: Jonathan Blitzer, André Santana
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 247
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 226
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 226
Everyone who makes the journey faces an impossible choice. Hundreds of thousands of people who arrive every year at the US-Mexico border travel far from their homes. For years, the majority came from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, but many more have begun their journey much farther away. Some flee persecution, others crime or hunger. They may have already been deported, but the United States remains their only hope for safety and prosperity. They will take their chances.
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5 out of 5 stars
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How America Created its Own Border Problem
- By Amazon Customer on 04-19-24
By: Jonathan Blitzer
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Sounds Wild and Broken
- Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction
- By: David George Haskell
- Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen, David George Haskell
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 24
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 20
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Story4 out of 5 stars 20
We live on a planet alive with song, music, and speech. David Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rain forests shimmering with insect sound and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution’s creative powers. From birds in the Rocky Mountains and on the streets of Paris, we discover how animals learn their songs and adapt to new environments. Below the waves, we hear our kinship to beings as different as snapping shrimp, toadfish, and whales.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A poet-philosopher-scientist-sage for the ages!
- By S. Kalita on 03-27-22
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White Trash
- The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
- By: Nancy Isenberg
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
In her groundbreaking bestselling history of the class system in America, Nancy Isenberg upends history as we know it by taking on our comforting myths about equality and uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing—if occasionally entertaining—poor white trash.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I have lived this experience and failed badly.
- By James W. Hoffpauir on 08-26-23
By: Nancy Isenberg
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The Little Book of Aliens
- By: Adam Frank
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 85
Everyone is curious about life in the Universe, UFOs and whether ET is out there. Over the course of his thirty-year career as an astrophysicist, Adam Frank has consistently been asked about the possibility of intelligent life in the universe. Are aliens real? Where are they? Why haven’t we found them? What happens if we do?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Simply Outstanding
- By CarlosR on 04-22-24
By: Adam Frank
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Hoof Beats
- How Horses Shaped Human History
- By: William T. Taylor
- Narrated by: Tristan Morris
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 6
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 5
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Story4 out of 5 stars 5
Hoof Beats transforms our understanding of both horses and humanity's ancient past and asks us to consider what our relationship with horses means for the future of humanity and the world around us.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good Overview of Horses’ Impact on Human History
- By ArmyVet64 on 04-28-25
What listeners say about Stuff Matters
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Ross
- 03-26-25
Might be a good pick for a young teen
Some interesting stuff, but the author was obnoxiously British - long winded, vapidly philosophical, and in love with his own digressions (do we not think about how great glass is BeCaUsE wE cAn SeE tHrOuGh IIIIIIITTT???). I don't regret finishing it, but I'm glad it was only 6 hours long. Might be a good book for a 9 - 15 year old.
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