| Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards Contributor(s): Wilker, Josh (Author), Meskimen, Jim (Read by) |
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ISBN: 1441768645 ISBN-13: 9781441768643 Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks OUR PRICE: $26.96 Product Type: MP3 CD - Other Formats Published: August 2010 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Sports & Recreation | Baseball - Essays & Writings |
| Dewey: 796.357 |
| Physical Information: 0.6" H x 5.3" W x 7.4" (0.22 lbs) |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Cardboard Gods is the memoir of Josh Wilker, a brilliant writer who has marked the stages of his life through the baseball cards he collected as a child. It also captures the experience of growing up obsessed with baseball cards and explores what it means to be a fan of the game. Along the way, as we get to know Josh, his family, and his friends, we also get Josh's classic observations about the central artifacts from his life--the baseball cards themselves. Josh writes about an imagined correspondence with his favorite player, Carl Yastrzemski; he uses the magical bubble-blowing powers of journeyman Kurt Bevacqua to shed light on the weakening of the powerful childhood bond with his older brother; he considers the doomed utopian back-to-the-land dreams of his hippie parents against the backdrop of inimitable 1970s baseball figures such as pinch runner Herb Washington and Mark "The Bird" Fidrych. Cardboard Gods is more than just the story of a man who can't let go of his past, it's proof that--to paraphrase Jim Bouton--as children we grow up holding baseball cards, but that in the end, we realize it's really the other way around. |
Contributor Bio(s): Meskimen, Jim: - Jim Meskimen is a stage, film, and television actor who has appeared in many well-known movies and television shows. He acted in Apollo 13 and Frost/Nixon for director Ron Howard, both of which were nominated for Best Picture Oscars. His television appearances include The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Friends, Lie to Me, Criminal Minds, and Parks and Recreation. He is also a painter, award-winning audiobook narrator, and audiobook director for Galaxy Audio. Wilker, Josh: -Josh Wilker writes about his life and childhood baseball cards at CardboardGods.net. Since his first posting in 2006, his site has been featured in The New York Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, and ESPN.com. He is a winner of the Howard Frank Mosher Prize for Short Fiction and has an MFA from Vermont College. He lives with his wife in Chicago. |