I recently ran across the word "tsotchkes" in a book and I have been unable to find any definition of same. Can anyone help me?

could you be meaning "tchotchke", knickknack, trinket, gimcrack, whigmaleerie, etc?

You'll find different spellings. It's another word from Yiddish. Stuff, junk, odds 'n' ends.

Yes, that must be the word . . . guess I just "mis remembered" the spelling. Do you have any idea of its origin?

I know it's from Yiddish, but I'll leave the etymology search to tsuwm, already.

OED gives two (2) major sp. variants: tsatske, tchotchke

[a. Yiddish, f. Slavonic (cf. Russ. tsatska).]
A trinket or gewgaw; transf., a pretty girl. Also "tsatskeleh [Yiddish -le dim. suff.], an affectionate diminutive of tsatske.

the first citation is from 1964(!) and this from:
1968 L. Rosten Joys of Yiddish 408 Tsatske and tchotchke are used interchangeably.+ At one time+West End Avenue in New York had an inordinately high proportion of tchotchkies.

so we're left to wonder if he meant gewgaws or pretty girls...

Is there a strong correlation between gewgaws and pretty girls? (leering male chauvinist pig emoticon)