Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger
Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger
6 Rating(s)
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
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Friday Night Lights
A Town, a Team, and a Dream

Author: H.G. Bissinger

Narrator: Tom Stechschulte

Unabridged: 14 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 12/25/2015


Synopsis

The 25th anniversary edition of the #1 New York Times bestseller and Sports Illustrated’s best football book of all time, with a new afterword by the author.

Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa—the winningest high school football team in Texas history. Socially and racially divided, Odessa isn’t known to be a place big on dreams, but every Friday night from September to December, when the
Panthers play football, dreams can come true.

MO-JO! MO-JO! The haunting cheer rocks the stadium filled with 20,000 fans, who are there not only to cheer on their beloved team, but also to reignite their own aspirations and dreams through the young men on the gridiron.

Pulitzer Prize–winning author H. G. Bissinger unforgettably captures a season in the life of Odessa: the coaches, parents, fans and—most of all—the players, who carry an entire city’s self-respect on their shoulders. From the prayer that opens the Watermelon Feed before the first
game, through the heart-stopping season and its dramatic ending, Bissinger renders a taut, indelible scene: the stale, sweltering air, the demanding play on the field, the exhilarating wins, and the punishing—sometimes devastating—losses.

Friday Night Lights is both a deeply moving story and a deeply disturbing one. It is a startling examination of the role of high school sports in America—but it is about much more than just sports. As David Halberstam writes: “By choosing towrite about something small—the culture of
high school football in a Texas town—Bissinger has ended up writing about something large: the core values of our society."

“A brilliant look at how Friday-night lights can lead a town into darkness.”—Sports Illustrated

Reviews

Goodreads review by emma on April 19, 2024

i'm going to make a confession to all of you. i like sports. watching them, that is. i'm not a total monster. i understand if we can no longer be friends. this is an incredible depiction of sports, of high school, of class, and of race. it's pretty remarkable what it's able to achieve, and it makes it i......more

Goodreads review by Jason on June 26, 2012

This book is heartbreaking. I grew up in a very liberal part of the country. My family is comprised mostly of hard-working European immigrants who value education above all else. In many ways, I should be the last person able to appreciate or understand life in small-town Texas with its conservative......more

Goodreads review by Paul on November 06, 2007

I was on an airplane one Friday night when I was reading this book. As the plane took off from Cleveland I noticed a high school football game in progress. I could see the lights.. the two teams on the field.. the crowd and the marching band. I watched the field as long as I could. Just at the point......more

Goodreads review by Charles on March 03, 2009

If you think this book is about high school football in Texas, you're pretty much wrong. There is a fair amount about football, but this book is really a sort of sociological study of a small Texas town where Football is played. There is a lot about the difficulties of the local economy after the oi......more

Goodreads review by Taylor on August 24, 2016

I didn't grow up in a football-watching family. My father, who apparently loved the game, passed away when I was young. My mother was much more interested in baseball, and had coworkers with season tickets, so I grew up going to the Kingdome to watch Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Joey Cora, Edgar......more