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This looks like a fun read. Written by Joshua Glenn, it's called Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects With Unexpected Significance. The publisher's blurb describes it as "...a wonder cabinet of seventy-five unlikely thingamajigs that have been invested with significance and transformed into totems, talismans, charms, relics, and fetishes: scraps of movie posters scavenged from the streets of New York by "Low Life" author Luc Sante; the World War I helmet that inoculated social critic Thomas Frank against jingoism; the trash-picked, robot-shaped hairdo machine described by its owner as a chick magnet; the bagel burned by actor Christopher Walken, moonlighting as a short-order cook." Perfect summer reading, and now added to the book list, too. Via The Book Design Review.