{"product_id":"the-intangibles-isbn-9780593492970","title":"The Intangibles","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe long-awaited first book by the award-winning New Yorker staff writer – a memoir that uses his lifelong obsession with the game of hockey as a prism into a sharp, witty, and entertaining exploration of masculinity, of boys and men, sons and fathers\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor two decades, Nick Paumgarten has been one of the \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e’s most cherished and popular staff writers. He can take a subject as ordinary as the elevator, as opaque as high-frequency trading or as iconic as the Grateful Dead, and make it shimmer with story, characters, humor, and consequence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat Nick Paumgarten has never done — until now — is write a book.\u003cbr\u003eTHE INTANGIBLES is Paumgarten’s memoir told through the odd but vivid lens of hockey. Not a book about hockey, really, but one in which a lifetime of obsessively hanging around the game — as a “beer League” player, a parent, a son, a coach, a fan, a middle-aged white guy in New York, a person of privilege, an imperfect man among other imperfect men — provides a vivid and sneaky-exotic window into a cultish world that hides in plain sight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE INTANGIBLES is also a timely, sharp, and witty exploration of masculinity, of boys and men, sons and fathers, of both the toxic and non-toxic kinds. And a deep, questioning look at, and finally a celebration of, a certain world of male friendship, in which sport — or the dreams of sport — becomes the lingua franca for a group of men with all their faults and hopes. Paumgarten’s memoir both explores and undermines some of the mythologies of manhood and sport, while creating a fresh, rich, and honest portrait of men at play — the kind of male play of such outsized importance that it defies logic, age, orthopedics, and the responsibilities of grown-up life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor all its entertainment and humor, however, THE INTANGIBLES also reveals a shadow male world that is both shocking and commonplace. It happens to be an atmosphere that many American boys and men still breathe — in schools, offices, locker rooms, bars, and backyards — and that women have had to contend with. Paumgarten never felt entirely comfortable around bro culture, but it’s always been there, in myriad forms, from the subtle to the extreme. In THE INTANGIBLES — the name of Paumgarten’s most memorable beer league team – we meet an array of hockey-crazy men, the author included, trying to make their way through the world with the baggage that’s been laid on them by the men came before them — fathers, grandfathers, coaches, sports heroes — and the growing knowledge that they have laid their own baggage on their sons. Striped through these mines of granite and ore, shining like precious metals, are surprising veins of vulnerability, reflection, and reckoning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough he rarely plays anymore, Paumgarten still cherishes the game of hockey. In many respects, THE INTANGIBLES is a love letter to the game, and a razor-sharp, original, and mordant anthropology of its participants and their earnest strivings by one of our finest writers.\u003cb\u003eNick Paumgarten \u003c\/b\u003ehas been a staff writer at the \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e since 2005. Prior to that, he spent five years as an editor and writer at the magazine. He has covered a wide range of subjects, including politics, finance, art, music, food, technology, mountaineering, sports-talk radio, elevators, boxer-bartenders, commuters, and canoes. His work has also appeared in \u003ci\u003eOutside\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGQ\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBon Appetit\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMen's Vogue\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePowder\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eAdventure Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Sewanee Review\u003c\/i\u003e. He was an editor and reporter at the \u003ci\u003eNew York Observer\u003c\/i\u003e from 1995-2000. He lives with his wife Siv in Manhattan.","brand":"Penguin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48532203798757,"sku":"NP9780593492970","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-intangibles-isbn-9780593492970","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}