I just ran across two reviews of books that show material possessions in photographs - I haven't read either (just put one on reserve at our library) but i have read Mendelsohn's "What the World Eats" and it was really beautiful and enlightening.
Both reviews have a lot of sample pages shown:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/04/08/material-world-peter-menzel/
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/08/08/where-children-sleep-james-mollison/
