Book excerpt: Understanding the Properties of Matter: 2nd Edition takes a unique phenomenological approach to the presentation of matter, materials, and solid-state physics. After an overview of basic ideas and a reminder of the importance of measurement, the author considers in turn gases, solids, liquids, and phase changes. For each topic, the focus is on "what happens." After a preliminary examination of data on the properties of matter, the author raises, then addresses a series of questions concerning the data. It is only in answering these questions that he adopts the theoretical approach to the properties of matter. This approach can reawaken in readers the fascination for the subject that inspired some of the greatest physicists of our age. Examples and extensive exercises reinforce the concepts. A supporting Web site furnishes for free download a plethora of additional materials, including: " Supplementary chapters on the band theory of solids and the magnetic properties of solids " Copies of all the data talbes used in the book, in PDF and spreadsheet formats " Enlarged copies of all figures " A simple molecular dynamics simulation " Animations uillustrating important featrues of key equations " Answers to the end-of-chapter exercises Understanding the Properties of Matter is an entertaining and innovative text accessible at the undergraduate level.