The Box by Richard Matheson

This is a collection of short stories. They are rather cerebral in cerebral. Most could be described as psychological dramas. For example, in "Button, Button" a man and his wife are given a button mounted on a box (think Deal or No Deal) and told that if they push it they we be given a large sum of money if they push it, but also that somewhere in the world, someone that they don't know will die. Matheson originally published this story in Playboy in 1970. It was used as a storyline for an episode of The Twilight Zone (1985) and has been made into a recently-released feature-length movie. Another essay involves on a psychic who is with a man who exploits her abilities, making people pay them for what she knows.

Many of the essays involve technology in some way, often highlighting the darker side of innovations. They put me in mind of some of the work of Philip K. Dick.