First off I have to ask:

Question: How cool is it that this book has two different covers?  Answer: VERY.

This is a collection of short stories written about 100 different *tchotchkes.  Each story is written by a different author including Shelley Jackson, Lydia Millet, Jonathan Lethem and Tom McCarthy just to name a few.

*  “Tchotchke is a small toy, gewgaw, knickknack, bauble, lagniappe, trinket or kitsch.  Depending on context, the term has a connotation of worthlessness of disposability, as well as tackiness and has long been used by Jewish-Americans and in the regional speech of New York City and elsewhere.” -Wikipedia

So here’s how this works;

1. 100 items were obtained from flea markets, yard sales and thrift stores (all were around $1.25 a piece).

2. 100 different writers were asked to write a short story about 1 of the items, a story that gave significance to the item.

3. All 100 items were put up for auction on eBay using the short stories as the item descriptions.

So, they bought 100 items for the sum total of $128.74 and sold them all on eBay for a grand total of $3,612.51.  That’s pretty cool.  It just goes to show you how important stories are.

by Zita

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