“One person’s trash is another’s treasure” is the underlying concept of “Found: The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World,” edited by Davy Rothbart. The book compiles the best items from the magazine “Found,” as well as many new finds.

Notes, drawings, pictures and stories litter the pages of “Found.” The idea is people from around the world send in items found on the street, garbage cans or attics. The stories these items tell about their creators or subjects are fascinating.

Some finds are funny, like the curious note found on a windshield reading, “Please do not put crab on my car just cut it out!!!,” or the apology note, “I’m sorry about last Friday … I thought it was you!! I swear.”

Many finds tell a personal story. One note from a girl to her father promises money, phone cards and a visit. A poster with information from a man missing from the 100th floor of the World Trade Center captures a desperate search for a loved one.

The finds have their own tales; one shows a child opening a present with his father looking on, while another displays a man with grinning on the ground toting a semi-automatic weapon.

The finds intertwine with the people who find them, as in the case of two friends and a pair of shoes. Each took one as a token to remember their friendship.

Rothbart includes a number of interviews with people who base their livelihood on the finding or have a connection to it, like the cartoonist Lynda Barry and artist Dr. Evermore, who takes old industrial machinery and turns it into art.

The items are strewn randomly on the book’s pages with no connection to each other, as if the reader had found them. Rothbart only comments on the items to give a backstory.

The trash-filled pages of “Found” are fascinating, as the book plays on voyeurism inherent in human nature. It’s hard to keep from creating imaginary stories for the finds, and even harder to put the book down.

Rothbart presents the finds in a way that makes the reader feel like they have stumbled upon the lives of others without a meddling “middle-man,” allowing items to tell their own stories.

“Found” is funny but poignant in its portrayal of human nature and daily life, bordering on the philosophical in the way it makes the reader contemplate the rest of humanity.

Through something as trivial as trash, the reader gets a glimpse into the lives of hundreds of people. The book is worth finding a copy, whether in a Dumpster or at the library.