First off, awesome cover!!! F U A-Rod! Secondly, this is really a book for Red Sox fans, which I am not. I am a major Stephen King fan, but that didn't matter for this, except we get to see the early germination of the idea for "A Face In The Crowd". The first 320+ pages are tedious, and could only appeal to a Sox fanatic. It's almost a game by game break down of the friggin season! When it finally gets to the playoffs, I felt like it picked up. Both authors trash manager Terry Francona throughout, which is funny, considering the outcome. My favorite part is O'Nan's last entry. His team has won the whole thing, and like a true fan, his eye turns to next year. I can totally relate! As Ole Case used to say,"You could look it up." ( )

Read during Spring 2006

I didn't plan to read this but ended up reading it while watching this season's Red Sox. It started out a bit slow and I was in fear of reading about every single Red Sox game from Spring Training onward, plus lots of Stewart O'Nan going to BP and catching balls to be signed (I don't get that mindset) but it caught hold of me. I've never read Stephen King (not a horror fan) but I appreciated his writing style more than O'Nan's, whom I'd never heard of. As the season picked up, the book did as well and it was alot more about riding the wave of emotions in a very long baseball season, esp. as a long suffering Red Sox fan. That summer and fall are bit of a blur for me so it was, well, perhaps not good but interesting to go back and read and see what came through my memory. I ended up enjoying it more than I expected. Next, it goes to Argentina to a bookcrosser who is looking forward to it.

Ah, 2004, a time when the Devil Rays were the Devil Rays, and when the current generation, my generation had just had one of it's most crushing blows ever (Sure, I was alive in '86 when that happened, but also, I was not really watching TV at that point, or, ya know, putting together terribly complicated sentences yet).

At the beginning of the season two writers, Stewart O'Nan, and Stephen King, started diaries, planning to make them into a book. They didn't know that '04 would be the year the Red Sox finally won their first World Series since 1918 (Spoiler Alert....) And so the book is the same ride that most of us Red Sox fans rode that seasons. The ups, the downs, the really downs, and then the emotion when Foulke underhanded the ball to first Baseman Doug M. (the authors may have been able to spell First Baseman Doug M's last name, but I still can't).

Within the book O'Nan is more the play by play guy, while King is the color commentator. Still, I went through the emotions myself that year, so I didn't really need King's interpretation, but, O'Nan had some interesting insights. (Plus, O'Nan totally referenced Star Trek, kudos).

Unfortunately a lot of the book is a bit dry, so, if you didn't live through the '04 Red Sox season, or are a die hard (really really die hard) baseball fan, it may seem stilted. I think the reason why the book worked for me and so many Red Sox fans was because, as I've said up above, we lived through it too. The book was just confirmation and a reassurance that we're not the only crazies who still get emotional when we see or hear the final out of the '04 ALCS and '04 World Series. ( )

Faithful is a book about the Boston Red Sox and their 2004 season. It's written by Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan
First off, if you don't like baseball at all, you probably won't like this book at all because all of it is about baseball. If you like reading about baseball then I recommend this book. Faithful is very detailed and well wrote book. Even though it just talks about baseball, it is a fairly funny book, but most of the time it is very serious. It also has a good plot leading up to one of the biggest comebacks in sports history. There is also lots of information in this book and they write about things you might now know to much about. Although this book is overall a good book it is also so detailed to the point where you might start to loose interest. Other than that though, Faithful is A PRETTY GOOD BOOK.

Flashbacks aplenty. Not surprising, it read faster during winning streaks & the playoffs. An entertaining trip down memory lane. ( )