Includes index.

Originally published in Italian as: La materia dei sogni : sbirciatina su un mondo di cose soffici (lettore compreso). Milano : Springer, 2010.

1. Overture: A special day -- 2. A life in suspense : A big cast of little characters ; When it pays to be superficial ; Colloidal Waterage, an award-winning firm ; Rock and roll in suspense ; Osmosis, the breath of a dispersed world ; Colloidal Lego, matter made to measure ; Softness without limit: fractal aggregates ; Concrete: united by charge ; Particles spreading waves: colloidal light and colors ; A very particular particulate ink ; Flying colloids: deceptive beauty of the aerosols -- 3. Freedom in chains : Long and disordered queues ; A tale of cross-links and double-crosses ; Necklaces for all tastes ; Plastics: false solids with a biddable disposition ; Snake dance ; Entropy: disorder or freedom? ; Elastic by chance ; The secret of Mr. Fantastic ; Panta rei ; Nightmares for Indiana Jones ; Charged polymers: polyelectrolytes -- 4. Double-faced Janus molecules : Striding on water: the physics of Jesus bugs ; Surfactants, a split personality ; Soap bubbles: a paradise for kids and math nerds ; Micelles: when surfactants find peace ; As white as can be: the science of cleaning ; A large and varied family ; Questions of shape ; A mischievous break: watch the label! ; Small but mighty emulsions ; Black gold -- 5. Nanoarchitecture : Kepler, Bernal, and your greengrocer ; Colloidal crystals: ordered by entropy ; Glasses and gels: when hate and love yield similar results ; The world is not (just) a ball ; Sandcastles and shifting sands -- 6. Dreamtime : Concludo, ergo sum ; Proteins, a matter of mollecular origami ; Little chemists ; Truck drivers and intelligence ; Freemen of Flatland ; Yard workers ; Body builders ; A (protein-rich) lunch break ; Artificial respiration ; The Chieftain and his Shaman ; Back to the future -- 7. Weird words: soft matter from A to Z -- Index of common things (or almost so).