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Editorial Review Product Description
With frankness and compassion, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist H.G. Bissinger's national bestseller chronicles the dramatic 1988 season of the Permian Panthers--the winningest high school football team in Texas history. Friday Night Lights shows how the town's singleminded devotion to the team shapes the community and inspires (or shatters) the teenagers who wear the uniforms. Featured on "Sixty Minutes." 26 halftones.Amazon.com Review
Secular religions are fascinating in the devotion andzealousness they breed, and in Texas, high school football has its ownrabid hold over the faithful. H.G. Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winningjournalist, enters into the spirit of one of its most fervent shrines:Odessa, a city in decline in the desert of West Texas, where thePermian High School Panthers have managed to compile the winningestrecord in state annals. Indeed, as this breathtaking examination ofthe town, the team, its coaches, and its young players chronicles, theteam, for better and for worse, is the town; the communalhealth and self-image of the latter is directly linked to the on-fieldsuccess of the former. The 1988 season, the one Friday NightLights recounts, was not one of the Panthers' best. The game'seffect on the community--and the players--was explosive. Written withgreat style and passion, Friday Night Lights offers an Americansnapshot in deep focus; the picture is not always pretty, but theimage is hard to forget. ... Read more Customer Reviews (301) 
Friday Night Lights, The movie with Billy Bob Thorton
Item Received in very good condition around ther 18 of Aug. - Watched the movies and it was great!Have read the book and the movie followed it pretty darn close~
I have often ordered from Amazon - in fact quite often, and have never had a problem!This company is very efficient and goes to great lenghts to keep their customers informed.
As a closing, I first watched Friday Night lights as a choice from Netflex - after seeing the show I also bought from Amazon the 3rd and 4th season - can hardly wait for the 5th - I would highly recommend this show to everyone - plus the lead actor/actress were nominated for best supporting emmy awards. Would, and have recommended Amazon to many people
terrific story
Ths is now my favorite book of the past year. Great story, extremely well-written and entertaining. The intensity and emotion of high school football in West Texas is beautifully captured. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to experience the essence of small town, big time high school sports and to get a thoughful glimpse into the lives of those who make it happen. As an insightful sociological study of West Texas' love affair with high school football or as simply a heartfelt recounting of one town's high school season, I found this to be a fascinating book,impossible to put down.
Very Good
This book revealed the truth about small town reverence for their high school boy athletes.This mania also applies to boy's high school basketball.These boys are put up on a pedestal for 3-4 years and when they graduate, someone new takes their place in the current parent's eyes.The community is willing to spend big money to "beat" their rivals.They build lavish playing fields, gymnasiums, and buy expensive gear for the small number of players who participate.The "winning" coaches are also highly respected and held up as wonderful role models.
High school girl athletes are very, very secondary to the boys.They have a much smaller following.It is nice if they win their games, but they are not considered the true "representatives" of the school.
When the economy takes a dive, High School fine arts and music programs are always cut from the school programs, but never high school sports programs.The excited "Sports Boosters"dig up the money needed to preserve boy's sports.
A Beautifully Rendered Book
When you review books as a sometime-hobby like I do, sometimes time catches up to you and reminds you that the shelves out there are literally stuffed with great books never touched.And sometimes, like "Friday Night Lights," when some of these books came out, they are greeted with loathing or cheers.It's such a pleasure to read a book after all of that hooplah and thunder and lightning has died away, because, sometimes, you can then take a book like that as is, whole cloth, without emotional investments or baggage.And, I am pleased to say that I think "Friday Night Lights:A Town, a Team, and a Dream" is not only beautifully written, but remains just as timely.The year might have been 1988.But as much as things have changed since then, the book might as well be 2010 because it touches on so many themes that remain of concern to all thinking people - race, education, what "values" are in practice and not just in words, socio-economics in small towns, sports as secular religion, educational priorities, the ridiculous pressure placed on some student athletes and their coaches, "throw away kids," disappointed hopes and unrealized dreams and - perhaps most importantly - what happens after the glittering lie of "happily ever after" when the fairy tale ends and the stage is bare waiting for the next play and the next audience.What comes next is as sweet as gridiron victory for a few, a comedown for most, and for others the realization that all glory is fleeting and the lights nothing more than cheap, gauzy masques of what was always little more than cruel illusion for all too brief but critical a time.
I read with great interest one person's comment written some time ago that "Mighty Mojo" is not what it was once, that Permian has diversified and new economic ventures have given Midland-Odessa new faces and an even newer set of priorities.Although Bissinger, in his "Ten Years Later" addendum to the book, is reluctant to concede that point because of the still-present tendency to ditch unsuccessful coaches in the dirt and the insistence of the die-hards in treating football like a surrogate religious faith, he must concede that point on some level, and in fact does.And it is also my understanding that Permian High School has long ceased to be a football mill and become a school that prizes its academic achievements, a far cry from 1988.But, in a profound sense, all of that was built by the team of 1988 who, in allowing Bissinger to see their human faces and hear their voices, enabled him, whether intentionally or not, to tell less a story that "went national" and more a grand fable of what high school sports are and can be, should be, and - above all - what they must never become, now or again.
To the members of the Permian 1988 football team and the Midland-Odessa students, citizens, teachers, and families who allowed themselves to be interviewed for the book - thank you, ladies andgentlemen.You all did a great and good thing.
Recommended without reservation.
Very good!
I am way late in reading this book, but I thought it was very good.Since everything has already been said about this book, I'll only add a couple things.As a parent of boys who have all played Pop Warner football, I understand the frenzy that builds even in a youth league.And a good friend who lives in Texas once told me that people there are crazy over high school football.Now I truly understand.
I related to this book in two ways.First, it reminded me of my high school days and how, during the football season, almost everyone followed the team, but never to the extreme described at Permian.
Second, it becomes very clear to me how only a very few young football players ever make it beyond the high school level and how important it is to prepare your kids for other things besides a pro career.
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