The Thousands

In his 39 years, Dave Eggers has written four books, co-authored at least eight more, set up the multifaceted McSweeney’s publishing house and founded 826 National, a chain of not-for-profit literacy centres aimed at disadvantaged children. All while raising his younger brother single-handedly. And me? I like trains. But perhaps Eggers’ greatest achievement to date has been his resuscitation of the concept of novelty shopping. Presumably seeing a gap in the market for high-quality, artistically designed useless shit, each of the seven 826 National centres in the US has been fitted with an individually themed novelty store frontage, i.e. New York sells Superhero Supplies, Seattle covers the space traveller and San Francisco purveys pirate products. ("Definitely one of the top five pirate stores I’ve been to recently." – David Byrne)

And now, to document this revival, we have Essentially Odd, a witty catalogue of the myriad life-improving 826 products, which range from robot emotion upgrades to black hole starter kits. The book also has commentary on each piece of merchandise, as well as an accounting of the good work of the 826 programs. Basically it’s a heart-warming piece of whimsy that also helps out a good cause and, well, that’s about as high a recommendation as I can give it, really.