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The Intangibles

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What to expect

'One of the best books I've read this year, or any other' David Grann
'Just ridiculously good . . . I did not want it to end' William Finnegan

The 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 provides a vivid and sneaky-exotic window into a cultish world that hides in plain sight.

The 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, orthopaedics, and the responsibilities of grown-up life.

Though 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.

Critics Review

The Intangibles is itself filled with so many intangibles that they are impossible to catalogue. There is the charm, the wit, the poignant coming-of-age story, the laugh-out-loud lines, the mad beer-league hockey scenes, the violence, the grace, the messiness of life, the insights into parenthood, the moments of transcendence. What they all add up to is something tangible: one of the best books I've read this year, or any other
David Grann
Just ridiculously good. Line for line, the richest, funniest book I've read in years. Only Nick Paumgarten could turn beer league hockey into spun gold. It's the examined life on skates. Friendships so deep and unlikely, all the unspoken codes, the writer's raw honesty with himself, the vestigial violence between grown men. I did not want it to end
William Finnegan
Brilliantly written, hilarious, insightful, unsparing, humane, moving in the extreme. Did I say sports book? This is simply a great book, one that will stay with me
Louisa Thomas
Nick Paumgarten has written the rare book about men that is also, secretly, a book about love: the strange, tender, often ridiculous ways men love each other and their sons. The Intangibles is a book to be read and savored by everyone
Susan Orlean
When I finished this book, I experienced many different emotions at once. I felt deeply unsettled, filled with both melancholy and triumph, mixed with feelings of admiration and envy for the beautiful writing and the howitzer power of the details, and with the sense that I'd finally read the sports story I've been waiting for my whole life. I loved this book, clearly, but more important, I get it.
Wright Thompson
Author Nick Paumgarten
Narrator Nick Paumgarten
Duration 10 hours
Release Date
ISBN 9781529434927
Format Audiobook
Publisher Quercus
Genre Ice hockey, Memoirs
Availability AU, GB, IE

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