75 things taken seriously

As a longtime fan of Joshua Glenn, I’m pretty curious about the book he has put together: Taking Things Seriously. “A wonder cabinet of seventy-five unlikely thingamajigs that have been invested with significance and transformed into totems, talismans, charms, relics, and fetishes…. 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.”

In all, sounds like a thoughtful take on on material culture (which is, of course, my beat, so I’m a little biased about why I think this project is such a good idea) by an interesting bunch of contributors including Paul Lukas, Thomas Frank, and Luc Sante.
I was also pleased to learn recently about Glenn’s Brainiac blog on the Boston Globe site, where he’s got a post listing all contributors and a running account of praise received.