If ever there was a subject ripe for satire, Texas high school football is it. But H.G. Bissinger plays it straight in this surprisingly moving account of a season with Odessa's Permian High School Panthers. That isn't to say Friday Night is Capra-esque, not with its frank treatment of academic struggles, injuries, racism, and the economic realites of life in a late-'80s oil town. And while many coaches and administrators were displeased with the book, the players loved it, which probably means Bissinger got it all right.

Thomas Rogers