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Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream (Paperback)

by H.G. Bissinger (Author) "IN THE BEGINNING, ON A DOG-DAY MONDAY IN THE MIDDLE OF August when the West Texas heat congealed in the sky, there were only the..." (more)

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Product details

Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Yellow Jersey Press; New edition edition (28 April 2005)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0224076744
ISBN-13: 978-0224076746
Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 2.8 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (33 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 63,048 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#13 in Books > Sports, Hobbies & Games > American Sports > American Football

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Product Description

Review
Superb and disturbing - More than a sports book, it's a search for the America of ordinary people.', Newsday .'A remarkable book, fascinating from start to finish, full of surprises.', David Halberstam .'Friday Night Lights offers a biting indictment of the sports craziness that grips ... most of American society, while at the same time providing a moving evocation of its powerful allure.', New York Times Book Review .'Just about everything you could ask for in a sports book', New York Times

Product Description
In the state of Texas American football is a religion. And nowhere is more fanatical about its football than the small town of Odessa. There, every Friday night from September to November, a bunch of seventeen-year-old kids play their hearts out for the honour of their high school. In front of 20,000 people. In 1988 H.G. Bissinger spent a season in Odessa discovering just what makes a town pin its hopes on eleven boys on a football field. He lived with the students, coaches and townspeople who dedicate their lives to their team, sharing their joys and triumphs, their pains, injuries and bitter disappointments. He returned with a compassionate but hard-eyed story of a town riven by money, race and class, where a high school can spend more on medical supplies for its athletic program than on its English department. Friday Night Lights is one of the best books about sport ever written. It is the story of how dreams and reality collide, at once glorious and immensely sad. Because for the 30-odd boys of the Permian Panthers, these days will have been the best of their lives.

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First Sentence
IN THE BEGINNING, ON A DOG-DAY MONDAY IN THE MIDDLE OF August when the West Texas heat congealed in the sky, there were only the stirrings of dreams. Read the first page

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	84% buy the item featured on this page: Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream 4.5 out of 5 stars (33) �6.99
	6% buy Friday Night Lights [DVD] [2004] 4.2 out of 5 stars (12) �4.98
	4% buy Friday Night Lights - Season 1 - Complete [DVD] [2006] 4.7 out of 5 stars (15) �7.98
	3% buy Friday Night Lights: The Second Season [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] 5.0 out of 5 stars (1)

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Customer Reviews

33 Reviews

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.5 out of 5 stars (33 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars FASCINATING BUT DEPRESSING, 1 Aug 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Friday Night Lights (Hardcover)

H.G. Bissinger's account of the fortunes of a high school football team during the 1988 season is a genuinely unsettling exploration of the dominant role that sports occupies in American culture. As abrasive and uncompromising as the empty west Texas prairie that surrounds it, the racially and economically-divided oil town of Odessa is a community in decline. The Permian Panthers football team, the most successful high school team in state history, is the only stable feature around which the town, bankrupted by the boom-bust oil economy of the eighties, can base any sense of identity. Such is the unbelievable extent of the town's obsession with the team, that one often forgets that the players Bissinger writes about are not seasoned professionals or even highly-touted college stars, but 17- and 18-year old high school kids. The pampered treatment that the players receive at school and from the community is disquieting, and it becomes clear that without Permian football, the people of Odessa would have nothing with which to give their lives structure and meaning. In this way, Friday Night Lights examines the relationship between a sports team and a community that occupies such an intriguing and integral role in the American identity. Bissinger's observations moreover highlight the disturbing inadequacies of an education system continually relegated to second place behind athletic success. A fascinating, if ultimately depressing book, that is as much an indictment of life in the heartland of Reagan-era America as it is of the more general nationwide obsession with sports.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even if you didn't play high school football, READ THIS BOOK, 11 May 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream (Paperback)

As a three year member and starter of the varsity squad of my High School in Chesapeake Virginia, the stories from this book were all too familiar. The small Virginia town in which I played was similiar to that of Odessa, Canton, Penn Hills, and others across the country where High School football is the main focus of attention and entertainment. This book made me think back to all of the great times I had, the great friends I made, and the many memories that I will never forget. Bissinger brought out the many "behind the scenes" views of the sport. All the problems and events that happen in the Permian locker room, coaches office, halls, classrooms, and in the lives of the players, occur everyday in schools everywhere.

On the bus ride home from the very last game of my senior year..a tough last minute loss, giving our school its first losing record in 25 years at 4-6. I thought about the two state championships we won in the two years before, and why it had to end like it did, and I thought about the blood, sweat, and tears that we have all spilled on the playing fields. As we pulled away I realized that I'd probably never step onto a football field to play again and that these days are now behind me forever. Then, like so many of the seniors on the bus with me, and the thousands more around the country...I cried.

I sometimes forget why I played football in high school. Three years after my final game I bought this book and read it. It then became all clear to me, and I recalled why I played. I laughed a little, and maybe even cried a little, and you will too.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Searing, 6 Sep 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream (Paperback)

FRINDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is a deeply disturbing book. It deserves a wide audience. While outwardly, football is the focus of the book, the books delivers a devastating critique not only of false dreams and hopes, but of class and racial devides. As I was reading FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, I could not help comparing Odessa Permian with "Laketown High School"(Yorktown, West Chester NY), as portrayed in Richard Woodley's magnificent TEAM: A HIGH SCHOOL ODYSSEY (published in the early 1970s, and out of print). Like Bissinger, Woodley the journalist spent his time with "Laketown" football team. The contrast between Odessa and "Laketown" could not be more different. The difference? One can start off by the leadership and teaching roles of the two head coaches. The other factors, of course, is the role of football plays in various communities. Two weeks ago (August 1999), I drove by Odessa (it was hot and dusty) on my way back from San Diego, and I was reminded of the characters portrayed in the book: Boobie Miles (what are you doing now, Boobie?), the earnest QB with the wobbly pass, and the TE who went to Harvard.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Even for the non-US sports literate...
There is little than can be added about this incredible book, other than to assure any Brits or potential readers put off by the fact that they don't understand/enjoy American... Read more

Published 10 months ago by R. Gardham

5.0 out of 5 stars Astonishing
Being English, the whole American high school sport thing is something of a mystery. I knew that some university teams get crowds bigger than premier league football does here,... Read more

Published 14 months ago by chris widgery

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than the film
Like most others, I was inspired to read this after seeing the film. The film was great, but the book is brilliant. Read more

Published 17 months ago by Brendan Jackson

5.0 out of 5 stars simply brilliant
I bought this book, like many on the back of seeing the film and then subsequently a few episodes of the TV show and i have to say i was blown away from the first chapter. Read more

Published on 14 Mar 2007 by Graeme Ashcroft

3.0 out of 5 stars "Can you be perfect?"
Based on a true story, this film presents the odyssey of the Permian Panthers in their 1988 season. The Panthers are a high school football team from Odessa, Texas, that at the... Read more

Published on 24 May 2005 by Sebastian Fernandez

5.0 out of 5 stars A microcosm of American life
In short, this book is a highly significant piece of work (even more significant in the light of recent world events), and I would reccomend it to anyone who is interested in... Read more

Published on 23 Jun 2003 by jonathan collins

5.0 out of 5 stars THis is a book to remember
W. Somerset Maugham once said, "The only important thingin a book is the meaning it has for you. Read more

Published on 24 Aug 1999

4.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing and Sad
An excellent account overall -- disturbing, engrossing, and ultimately very, very sad. My only criticisms:

1. Read more

Published on 24 Jul 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars i think that this book is great for high school athletes
this book shines great light on thelife of the football players and l the town that they live in and the rivalrie between towns.

Published on 12 Jul 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars 48 minutes to play, a lifetime to remember!
I was a three year starting quarterback for a smaller west texas high school. This book brought back all of those glorious memories for me! Read more

Published on 11 Jul 1999

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