I like the sounds of this book mentioned briefly in today’s New York Times’ book review. Here’s the blurb from Amazon.

Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance is 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 while moonlighting as a short-order cook. The owners
of these objects convey their excitement in short, often poignant
essays that  invite readers to participate in the enjoyable act of
interpreting things.