I'm torn on how to describe this book. Is it the exploration of material science, or information on how the materials are used, or a collection of personal anecdotes? I guess it is a little of all of them. There are parts I liked, but mainly I found the book to be a bit of a disjointed and rambling mystery. Unfortunately, I don't know who I would recommend the book to. Perhaps a rewrite by the author, along with a serious editor to keep her focused. Sorry!

Handmade: A Scientist’s Search for Meaning through Making is an interesting monograph in the Sigma series, on materials and how they're utilized by Dr. Anna Ploszajski. Released 27th June 2023 by Bloomsbury on their Sigma imprint, it's 320 pages and is available in paperback and ebook format. (Other editions available in additional formats). It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is emphatically *not* a tutorial or crafting guide. What it is, is a materials scientist's exploration of materials and how their characteristics relate to their use and suitability to craft different purposes. The author is meticulous and clearly knowledgeable and goes into depth about the physical properties of each material she covers. The writing is not academic,

The book is arranged into chapters by subject: Glass, Plastic, Steel, Brass, Clay, Sugar, Wool, Wood, Paper, and Stone. The work is not too technical for laypeople to understand and the chapters are not annotated. There is a cross referenced index with live hyperlinks in the back of the book (ebook format).

The style is chatty and accessible. I found the information and history interesting. This would make a good choice for public library acquisition, maker's groups, materials science and popular science readers.

Four and a half stars - with the codicil that readers pick it up forewarned.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I liked the concept of this book, but was surprised that what I read didn't align with what I expected. Ploszajski is clearly passionate about materials and I think focusing on that could have produced a more linear book. This book isn't really about making things it's more about the materials themselves. Each chapter is broken up into a material like glass or wood and then Ploszajski talks about something she watched someone make with that material or learned about it from an expert or a class she took to learn about it. The chapters are fairly short and there doesn't seem to be much information about the actual making or the feelings behind it so much as a retelling or reaction of information about materials. Overall it's not the memoir I was expecting.