Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Things That Matter -- Objects of Design and Play -- My Cello -- Knots -- The Archive -- Stars -- Keyboards -- Objects of Discipline and Desire -- Ballet Slippers -- The Elite Glucometer -- The Yellow Raincoat -- The Datebook -- My Laptop -- Blue Cheer -- Objects of History and Exchange -- The Radio -- The Bracelet -- The Axe Head -- Dit Da Jow: Bruise Wine -- The Vacuum Cleaner -- Objects of Transition and Passage -- The Melbourne Train -- 1964 Ford Falcon -- The Synthesizer -- Murray: The Stuffed Bunny -- The World Book -- The Silver Pin -- Objects of Mourning and Memory -- Death-Defying Superheroes -- The SX-70 Instant Camera -- Salvaged Photographs -- The Rolling Pin -- The Painting in the Attic -- The Suitcase -- Objects of Meditation and New Vision -- Chinese Scholars' Rocks -- Apples -- The Mummy -- The Geoid -- Foucault's Pendulum -- Slime Mold -- What Makes an Object Evocative? -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Epigraph Sources -- Illustration Credits -- Index.