Steve Rushin. (2017). Sting-Ray Afternoons: A Memoir. Little, Brown and Company.

Steve Rushin. 2017. Sting-Ray Afternoons: A Memoir. Little, Brown and Company.

Steve Rushin, Sting-Ray Afternoons: A Memoir. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.

Steve Rushin. Sting-Ray Afternoons: A Memoir. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0017-1/{F1A0F0D7-4951-463A-9129-A04EA90DB686}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0017-1/{F1A0F0D7-4951-463A-9129-A04EA90DB686}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0017-1/F1A/0F0/D7/{F1A0F0D7-4951-463A-9129-A04EA90DB686}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0017-1/F1A/0F0/D7/{F1A0F0D7-4951-463A-9129-A04EA90DB686}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780316392242
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B01N0A12HW
     2. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780316392242
   • name: Kindle Book
   • id: ebook-kindle
3. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780316392242
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: Steve Rushin

title

Sting-Ray Afternoons

dateAdded

2017-07-14T11:40:00-04:00

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=3027485
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
     • id: 1151

sortTitle

StingRay Afternoons A Memoir

crossRefId

3027485

subtitle

A Memoir

id

f1a0f0d7-4951-463a-9129-a04ea90db686

starRating

4.2

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: StingRayAfternoons_9780316392228_3027485
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 38169604
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780316392228
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 0
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 7/3/2017
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=f1a0f0d7-4951-463a-9129-a04ea90db686&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: StingRayAfternoons_3027485
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B01N0A12HW
   • name: Kindle Book
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-kindle
   • onSaleDate: 7/3/2017
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=f1a0f0d7-4951-463a-9129-a04ea90db686&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
3. • fileName: StingRayAfternoons_9780316392228_3027485
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 46835612
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780316392228
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 7/3/2017
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=f1a0f0d7-4951-463a-9129-a04ea90db686&.epub-sample.overdrive.com

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Rushin, Steve
   • bioText: Steve Rushin has been writing for Sports Illustratedfor the last 25 years and was the 2006 National Sportswriter of the Year. His work has been collected in The Best American Sports Writing, The Best American Travel Writing, and The Best American Magazine Writing. He lives in Connecticut.
   • name: Steve Rushin

publishDate

2017-07-03T00:00:00-04:00

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

Sting-Ray Afternoons

fullDescription

This is a story of the 1970s. Of a road trip in a wood-paneled station wagon, with the kids in the way-back, singing along to the Steve Miller Band. Of brothers waking up early on Saturday mornings for five consecutive hours of cartoons. Of growing up in a magical era populated by Bic pens, Mr. Clean and Scrubbing Bubbles, lightsabers and those oh-so-coveted Schwinn Sting-Ray bikes. And of a father — one of 3M's greatest and last eight-track salesmen — traveling across the country on the brand-new Boeing 747, providing for his family but wanting nothing more than to get home.
In Sting-Ray Afternoons, Steve Rushin paints an utterly nostalgic, psychedelically vibrant portrait of a decade overflowing with technological evolution, cultural revolution, as well as brotherly, sisterly, and parental love.
"Funny, elegiac... a remarkably sunny coming-of-age story about growing up in a Midwest world." — NPR

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Julie Klam, author of The Stars in Our Eyes and the New York Times bestseller You Had Me at Woof
   • content: If you existed in the 1970s and had any awareness of the world around you, Steve Rushin's Sting-Ray Afternoons is going to hit you like the smell of Clairol Herbal Essence Shampoo. Smart as heck, laugh out loud funny and warm, Steve Rushin does for 1970s childhoods what Jean Shepherd did for 1940s Christmas. This book is nothing short of a Nadia Comenici Perfect 10.
2. • premium: False
   • source: Craig Finn, songwriter and guitarist, The Hold Steady
   • content: Steve Rushin's Sting Ray Afternoons is a fun and often hilarious account of growing up in the midwest in the 1970s. Throughout the book I was pleasantly reminded of things from my own past-Rushin revisits the TV shows, the toys, the games of the era while telling his family's own story. Sting Ray Afternoon captures both the freedom of youth and the universal longing for experience in a bigger, more adult world. If you grew up in the 1970s, prepare to have your memory triggered.
3. • premium: False
   • source: Nina Sankovitch, author of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair and The Lowells of Massachusetts
   • content: Charming and heartfelt, hilarious and touching, Rushin's Sting-Ray Afternoons is a pitch-perfect portrait of growing up in middle America during the Brady Bunch era. A gem of a memoir, a tribute to family, and a delectable slice of American history.
4. • premium: False
   • source: The Tampa Tribune
   • content: A refreshing look at the game.... The 34-Ton Bat is Rushin at his best: crisp and snappy writing, and a wide-angle view of baseball that will make you stop and think - and in some cases, laugh out loud.
5. • premium: False
   • source: Booklist (starred review)
   • content: Rushin approaches his passion with a mischievous gleam in his eye, a point of view captured perfectly in this anecdote-filled account of the sport's odd corners.... In an era of sports literature when societal significance and statistical algorithms aren't always as fun as we'd hoped, Rushin has reintroduced readers to silliness. Read it with a smile.
6. • premium: False
   • source: Rick Reilly
   • content: I got so addicted to The 34-Ton Bat, I wished the book weighed 34 tons. I'd have happily finished that, too.
7. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     May 8, 2017
     Best known for his back-page slice-of-life vignettes in Sports Illustrated, Rushin (author of The Caddie Was a Reindeer, an essay collection, and the novel The Pint Man) describes growing up in the 1970s. He employs such cultural references as Romper Stomper toys, the 1971 antilittering commercial featuring a Native-American (who it turned out was actually Italian-American) crying by the side of the road, the Sting Ray bike of the book’s title, and contemporaneous advertising jingles and adolescent chants (“Beans, beans the musical fruit... ”). Rushin uses his family as the book’s focal point, capturing the nonstop zaniness of growing up with four siblings in Bloomington, Minn. Some of these asides are funnier and more interesting than others, but ’70s kitsch and nostalgia are evident throughout, as for example in his family’s 1978 Ford simulated–wood-grain station wagon and a visit to the newly opened Disney World. But it’s Rushin’s dad, a child of the Depression, who steals the show. Whether quoting his father as he describes his five kids (“I have one redhead and four shitheads”) or retelling stories about him being drunk on what was the then new Boeing 747, it’s through his father that Rushin captures the mystery and magic of childhood. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM.

8. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     June 1, 2017
     An award-winning sportswriter looks back, mostly fondly, at a childhood in the 1970s in a Minnesota suburb.As the anxious middle child in a Catholic family with four boys and one girl, overseen by a housewife mother and a father who traveled around the world selling eight-track tape for 3M, Sports Illustrated writer Rushin (The 34-Ton Bat: The Story of Baseball as Told Through Bobbleheads, Cracker Jacks, Jockstraps, Eye Black, and 375 Other Strange and Unforgettable Objects, 2013, etc.) may not have been able to compete with his athletic older brothers for glory on the playing field, but he pleased his parents with a talent for puns and other wordplay and himself with a collection of baseball cards. For a future sportswriter, he had the good fortune to grow up in Bloomington when the city was home to all the major Minnesota sports teams: the Vikings, the Twins, and the North Stars. While Rushin still appears to bear a bit of resentment toward his oldest brother, the administrator of the "Indian Burn" and the "Dutch Rub," he clearly respects and admires his lovingly involved father and particularly his mother, with her concern that her children should avoid the awful fate of being perceived as "hillbillies." The author devotes much of the narrative to the pop culture of the 1970s: the titular bicycle, the candy cigarettes the boys brandished, the near worship of Farrah Fawcett, and the fear-inspiring experiences of seeing The Poseidon Adventure and Jaws on the big screen. Although frequent sidetracks into generic comments on life in middle America (the absence of seat belt use and the frequency of smoking) and asides about the history of Midwest-created objects such as the Nerf ball and the Weber grill sometimes detract from the author's personal story, the nostalgic sweetness of his memories carries the book along comfortably. Rushin provides convincing evidence that life in the '70s wasn't as chaotic as it's often made out to be.

     COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

9. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     May 1, 2017
     It didn't get much better than a shiny Schwinn Sting-Ray for a boy growing up in a Minneapolis suburb in the 1970s. Parking the banana-seated bicycle so its kickstand started to sink into driveway asphalt, a candy cigarette dangling from his lips and temporary tattoos on his skinny armsnow that was the height of cool, in young Rushin's mind. The Sports Illustrated writer recounts his childhood with a warm nostalgia, darkened only by the threat of being offered a Hertz donut. His childhood, from the ages of 3 to 13, was perfectly encapsulated in the 1970s, and he celebrates the excesses and excitement of the decade with ardor. He crams his writing with the brands that had their heyday during this time, and the stories behind them, from the designer of the Bic pens used as spitball machines in his classroom to the origin of the recordable tape his father sold for 3M. Rushin's everykid upbringing and the touchstones of childhood he recounts make Sting-Ray Afternoons a fun-filled and charming trip.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

popularity

785

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/f1a0f0d7-4951-463a-9129-a04ea90db686/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json

id

f1a0f0d7-4951-463a-9129-a04ea90db686

starRating

4.3

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0017-1/{F1A0F0D7-4951-463A-9129-A04EA90DB686}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0017-1/{F1A0F0D7-4951-463A-9129-A04EA90DB686}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0017-1/F1A/0F0/D7/{F1A0F0D7-4951-463A-9129-A04EA90DB686}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0017-1/F1A/0F0/D7/{F1A0F0D7-4951-463A-9129-A04EA90DB686}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Biography & Autobiography
2. • value: History
3. • value: Multi-Cultural
4. • value: Nonfiction

publishDateText

07/03/2017

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9780316392235

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

This is a story of the 1970s. Of a road trip in a wood-paneled station wagon, with the kids in the way-back, singing along to the Steve Miller Band. Of brothers waking up early on Saturday mornings for five consecutive hours of cartoons. Of growing up in a magical era populated by Bic pens, Mr. Clean and Scrubbing Bubbles, lightsabers and those oh-so-coveted Schwinn Sting-Ray bikes. And of a father — one of 3M's greatest and last eight-track salesmen — traveling across the country on the brand-new Boeing 747, providing for his family but wanting nothing more than to get home.
In Sting-Ray Afternoons, Steve Rushin paints an utterly nostalgic, psychedelically vibrant portrait of a decade overflowing with technological evolution, cultural revolution, as well as brotherly, sisterly, and parental love.
"Funny, elegiac... a remarkably sunny coming-of-age story about growing up in a Midwest world." — NPR

sortTitle

StingRay Afternoons A Memoir

crossRefId

3027485

subtitle

A Memoir

publisher

Little, Brown and Company

bisacCodes

1. • code: BIO002000
   • description: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Cultural & Regional
2. • code: BIO006000
   • description: Biography & Autobiography / Historical
3. • code: BIO026000
   • description: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs