Call me autistic if you will, but:
book of Aedyran poetry by the artist Scilba
How do our characters know that? Can they see the book's cover? And if they can: does it really matter to me, as a player? Also
So the first thing we noticed was
1. What the book was about, and
2. Who wrote the book.
As opposed to the dude picking a padlock with his free hand? What?
EDIT:
This reminds me of something my Screenplay professor told us the other day: don't focus on meaningless details; the only details worth describing are those that are actually important (e.g. the eagle foreshadows that character's affiliation with a certain faction or group of people). I understand there's a difference between a book and a film, but IMO videogames are much closer to movies than books are. And Obsidian insists on focusing on the meaningless details that provide NO INFORMATION WHATSOEVER on the characters, as opposed to the ones that actually do.
It is one thing to describe Cass' breath smells like alcohol (in an isometric Fallout game). It is another thing to descibre what material her shoes are made of. Granted, I have no idea if this lanky dude's love for poetry comes into play at any moment, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't.