"Josh Wilker's Cardboard Gods is a poignant and vivid account of how and why he accessed baseball cards as a survival tool while negotiating a 1970s childhood marked by changing mores and confusing mixed messages. This is a story of brotherly love, survival of the also-ran, and the hope that quickens a kid's heartbeat each time he rips open a fresh pack of baseball cards, gets a whiff of bubble gum, and, holding his breath, sees who he's got as opposed to who and what he needs. If you love the writing of Dave Eggers or Augusten Burroughs, you just may love Josh Wilker's Cardboard Gods , too. I did." --Wally Lamb, New York Times bestselling author of She's Come Undone and The Hour I First Believed "Josh Wilker writes as beautifully about baseball and life as anyone ever has." --Rob Neyer, ESPN "This is a story, at its heart, about growing up in America. More specifically it's about growing up at a time when country, author, and the great American game of baseball were simultaneously in a state of flux. Hippies, post-Watergate Nixonites, parents, kids, teens, and even baseball, forever altered with the introduction of free agency, all grasping at a murky, anxious future.

Josh Wilker, using seemingly random baseball cards pulled from his childhood, and the memories and metaphors they invoke, guides us through the restless and awkward story of his life (so far) with grace, pain, and ultimately vindication. In short, it''s a story about baseball and America and his (our) generation." --David Cross, actor, comedian, and author of I Drink for a Reason " Cardboard Gods is more than just a book. It is something that I lived and live still. I was the older brother. I live on Route 14 like Josh once did. My two sons were those boys in the picture, VW bus and all. Cardboard Gods awakened feelings in me that I have long suppressed.

It is a growth book, like Catcher in the Rye . People, especially people who love baseball, will carry this book with them everywhere." --Bill Lee, bestselling author of The Wrong Stuff , Red Sox legend, baseball bat entrepreneur "A warm, rich and funny recollection of one American boyhood as viewed through the unimpeachable prism of baseball cards. Literate, nostalgic and sneaky fast." --Brendan Boyd, author of Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book "Every baseball card is a story, a player, a history eroding. Josh Wilker understands this profoundly, and scrambles to bring those stories, his stories, to life in uproarious and moving fashion. Just don't put this book in your bike spokes." --Will Leitch, author of God Save the Fan , New York magazine contributing editor, Deadspin.

com founding editor "Josh Wilker has pulled of as nifty of double play as Tinkers-Evers-and-Chance ever executed in Cardboard Gods , reimagining the baseball cards of his youth and effortlessly turning them into a lamp to shine on his own memories in this fascinating read." --Bert Randolph Sugar, author of Bert Sugar's Baseball Hall of Fame: A Living History of America's Greatest Game "To say Josh Wilker writes beautifully about baseball, or boyhood--as he does--is to halve his ample achievement. Like Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes , Cardboard Gods nails the worshipful contortions and rueful ecstasies of fandom, and its pure dexterity with memory amounts to an athletic event of its own. Evocative, painful, affectionate and funny, Cardboard Gods is astonishing. Like Henry Aaron's home run ball described herein, Wilker's book wears its own halo." --Matthew Specktor, critically acclaimed author of That Summertime Sound "We never went bug-eyed over Xboxes and flickering computers connected to the ''net. We lost ourselves in baseball cards, our childhoods forever marked and remembered through the greats and goofballs spread across our bedroom floors. In Josh Wilker''s wonderful book, Cardboard Gods , he reconnects all of us through those snarky, smart-ass and often confusing days of our youth.

Thank goodness Mrs. Wilker never threw out those cards. Josh always knew they'd be worth something." --Adrian Wojnarowski, author of The Miracle of St. Anthony.