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I'm a huge baseball fan but sadly there's no baseball to watch on tv so I decided to read about it instead!
Anyone who picks this up ought to approach it from the perspective of a baseball fan, first and foremost - otherwise it'll probably be a slog. O'Nan in particular likes to give detailed play-by-plays throughout the regular season, and it's not always riveting reading. I really enjoyed this book because the 2004 Red Sox didn't qualify as favorites, and while they did have Theo Epstein (the fellow who eventually turned the Cubs organization into WS winners in 2016), Terry Francona was a new manage...
In the dead of winter I start getting all jittery when there’s no baseball. Sorry, but football, basketball and hockey just can’t fill the void. You know Stephen King has led a charmed life when he finally decides to co-write a fan’s-eye view of his favorite team and he chooses the season when they finally win the World Series after an 86-year drought. Faithful is an entertaining read, especially for this Red Sox fan who could use a little bit of baseball back in his life. Spring training is jus...
One of my favorite LOST lines is when Ben tells Jack that the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, and Jack's response is, "now I know you are lying." In a stroke of luck, Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan were hired to chronicle the 2004 Boston Red Sox season, which culminated in their first World Series win since 1918. A delightful back and forth of the thoughts, backgrounds, and game statistics of the season, I expected to enjoy, but I did not expect to laugh out loud so often. If you enjoy baseba...
Cue Frankie Vallie:Oh what a season, late October back in 2004. What a very special time for me, as I remember oh what a season.This book relives what was the greatest season in Redsox history. It tells everything from the dizzying highs to the terrifying lows, to the times that made us cluck our tongues and say., "My oh my what ever should we do about this Terry Francona character and his merry band of misfits?". . It relives the benches clearing bloody, Saturday afternoon brawl against the hat...
Great book for Boston fans. Good book for baseball fans. Not the best book for Stephen King fans only.
On the surface, this is a book for Red Sox fans. I am not a Red Sox fan. I grew up a Phillies fan, and am the son of a Cubs fan, so I don't need to be preached to about baseball futility. However, the little details of what it means to be a baseball fan are what makes this book so readable. So underneath all the Red Sox rooting, there is a very nice book about being a fan, of a team and the game. If you don't have a working knowledge of baseball, let this book slide. The authors don't try to exp...
As the title says, Faithful is about the 2004 Red Sox season. O'Nan and Stephen King write alternate chapters and discuss the team in depth and describe the games they get to see. King has season tickets and O'Nan has to scrounge for chances to go to the games.
I didn't just read this book, I savored it, taking my time to get through to the end. I had not read a Stephen King book in year's but he was as fun as I remember. It was also entertaining to listen to the fans neurosis as the season wore on and their disbelief at finally winning it all.
This is a book for fans by fans, and admirers of these two writers will be amazed that they had anything else to do in 2004 besides obsess over their team. And you couldn't make this up -- the year they are commissioned to write a double diary chronicling their lives as woebegone Red Sox fans, the impossible happens and the Sox go on to take the series. Not news to anyone with even a rudimentary interest in the game. Knowing the ending doesn't matter here; what is important is the day by day fil...
Even though I'm a Texas boy and have rooted for the hard-luck Rangers my entire life, 'Faithful' is still a fun read. This is partly because O'Nan & King live out the anxieties that all of us diehard sports fans go through as we live & die with our favorite teams. It's almost like sitting in the bar overhearing these two go back and forth/bitch and moan about the Red Sox.However, what really makes the book is that O'Nan & King just happened to pick the 2004 season to chronicle the Red Sox, and i...
Thoroughly enjoyed this book, but maybe mostly for the walks down memory lane it prompted. The magical Red Sox summer of 04 was also the year we moved from baseball-crazy Boston to half-Red-Sox, half-Yankees Connecticut. I spent lots of those first few lonely months in Connecticut (foreign town, husband constantly at work) watching the Red Sox rise, slump, and improbably rise again. The rag-tag long-haired boys of Boston were a great diversion from the sometimes scary acts of moving, sending my
Awesome book. Loved the picture on the cover of the book.GO SOX!
The Boston Red Sox won the world series a month ago and I have been having baseball withdrawal symptoms ever since. These symptoms will not go away completely until March 29, when next season starts. At the baseball book club here on goodreads we have the perfect tonic for the lack of baseball being played on the diamond: reading at least one baseball book a month until the season starts. In honor of the most recent Red Sox victory, our selection this month is Faithful, in which authors Stewart
Did you know that I like the Red Sox? I like the Red Sox. Did you know we won the World Series recently? Twice! But the first time was the best. After that first time, I did the following:- Wept- Drank several beers- Several is an approximation- Jumped out of my cab in the middle of the street to hug a total stranger- Like three times, seriously- Bought the entire postseason on DVD so I could watch The Steal again and again- Wept while watching The Steal again and again- Read several books by cr...
This is a little odd; I wrote a review well over a decade ago and posted it and now it's gone. Research ensues, and I see that's happened to seven other titles I'd shelved, too. I'm now compelled to post a comment or two because of my completest compulsion. King's writing is always enjoyable. Nan contributes a bit more to the text than he does, but his counterpoint is well composed and interesting. As a diehard Yankees for the last five decades I viewed the subject matter as an account of traged...
This is the second time I've read this book and, just like the first, it was very hard going for me. There are basically two aspects to this book. The first is a love letter to baseball, sometimes recounted in nearly an inning-by-inning fashion. As you can imagine, these sections are almost impossible for me to read.But the second part---oh, the second part! That's a love letter to obsession. And that I can rally behind. I don't get people who love sports (although if forced at gunpoint to watch...
I listened to this on audiobook a little at a time. It was fun to hear the day to day details of two everyday baseball fans. I was busily attending almost every September game of the last place but rebuilding 2017 Phillies and it main a fine companion, a partner in crime even. Any story where the Yankees die a horrible death is a happy ending.
I'm reading this now to prep for the Red Sox win of the 2007 World Series!--------------Stephen King is hilarious in this chronicle of the first Red Sox WS win in 86 years. O'Nan gives more of a straightforward account, King def steals the show. Great book, esp if you are a Sox fan.
Sean LaPrise11/11/10Period: 1Mr. AmbroseQuarter One Book Review: Faithful In the year of 2004, history was made marking the greatest comeback in all of Baseball by none other than the Boston Red Sox. Two die-hard fans, who decided to chronicle the 2004 season of the Boston Red Sox were novelist, Stewart O’Nan and author of contemporary horror, Stephen King. These authors however would not know what history would eventually be made by their home team, and their recap of this great year would spaw...