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“Thingness” is a category for books that put objects at the center, examining the material life of things and how they shape human worlds. It spans nonfiction that traces the biographies of objects (from extraction and design through manufacture, use, repair, and discard), cultural histories that read societies through their artifacts, and philosophy that probes materiality and objecthood. It also includes narrative nonfiction and memoirs that use a single thing to unlock memory, place, labor, or power. In fiction, “Thingness” highlights stories that grant agency or voice to objects, build plots around artifacts, or reimagine human–object entanglements. Across forms, the emphasis is on texture, durability, circulation, scarcity, and the ethics of making, owning, and discarding—asking what things do, not just what they mean. The throughline is attention to the presence and potency of stuff in our lives, revealing how objects mediate relationships, economies, environments, and identities.

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