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This book is composed of 4 complete books: A Carribean Mystery, A Pocket Full of Rye, The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side, and They Do it with Mirrors. In each, Miss Marple makes her gentle, unassuming appearance and quietly solves the murders. She is such an enjoyable character, and so often underestimated. She is from a village called Mary St. Mead, and often as she meets new people she compares them with those she has known before in her 'quiet' village, and finds someone with whom they share characteristics. This usually gives her extra insight and reminders as to what humans are really capable of doing. Because she is an elderly woman, those who don't know her try to be careful of her sensibilities, but she understands better than they do how humans are complex and sometimes evil beings.

As always, with good murder mysteries, there are all sorts of false clues and important clues that are understated or ignored. Miss Marple sometimes asks questions which don't seem to make much sense, but are actually vital. In one of these cases, the final clue which convinces Miss Marple of what actually happened is one short conversation between the victim and another character. Everyone that overheard it remembers a different answer that was given, but the correct answer reveals both the murderer and the motive! A reminder of what it means to be attentive. So often we hear without actually listening, and we see without actually observing. Well-written enough that I'd read these again .. after enough time so that the details become foggy!

Title:	Miss Marple Omnibus, Volume 2
Author:	Agatha Christie
Date published:	1997 (individual books published between 1952 and 1964)
Genre:	Mystery
Number of pages:	654
Notes:	from Amy

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I was pleasantly surprised with how readable and interesting this book was. It starts off almost more like a memoir, as Geller tells some of her story and how she came to her view of how dogs should be trained. She has a great story of trying to use foreign toilet facilities in a strange land, and then compares this to dogs, who she says don't know what we want them to do and don't know how to ask us. She also describes her observation of wolves, who teach pups how to behave by playing games. Geller is apparently a dog coach to the stars, and at times it feels like she is name dropping, but she tells plenty of other stories about non-celebrity dogs and families when it suits the purpose of what she is trying to communicate. Geller claims that most of what passes for dog training these days is actually abusive, and she has some horror stories of dogs with broken feet and crippled legs that bear witness to this.

The training ideas are easy to follow along with and Geller generally provides reasons why you should do things a certain way. I found new ideas and insights that were helpful to me with my dog, who is mostly pretty well trained (and some thoughts about why he has trouble with a couple of commands he doesn't always do so well). The idea of different levels of treats to help reward different kinds of behavior is helpful, and even the notion that dogs need structure but also like a surprise now and then. I found Geller's opinion on training dogs to heel interesting and sort of emblematic of the rest of her thinking-- she says it goes back to a time when dogs were soldiers, and had to be on the opposite side of where the rifle was carried, but that dogs aren't soldiers anymore and we don't need to treat them like they are.

Geller is clearly very passionate about her work and dogs, as evidenced by the organizations and campaigns she describes in the back of the book: Stop Puppy Mills, Another Chance for Love, and Pets for Life.

Title:	The Loved Dog
Author:	Tamar Geller with Andrea Cagan
Date published:	2007
Genre:	Nonfiction, Dog Training
Number of pages:	227
Notes:	gift from Ardis

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This may be the best nonfiction book I've ever read. Maybe that's not saying much, since I don't read all that much nonfiction, but I found it engrossing and well-written. The well-known book that's been turned into a movie and a TV series follows the season of High School football for the Permian panthers in Odessa, Texas; but along the way, Bissinger not only brings the town and the people to life, he also gives fascinating insights to racism, classism, politics, the oil bust and boom, the history and culture of Odessa and neighboring rivals, as well as the fanatical, near-religious devotion to football.

Every now and then I found myself wondering about the narrator-- not because he is present or noticeable in the text, but precisely because he is so invisible and yet manages to capture so many details and moments in a way that seems so clear and insightful; even though it's never mentioned, I imagine the author doing his careful, meticulous research, following along all season long with the team, the coaches, the players and their families to capture so many of these crucial moments in the season, and to hear and understand their stories.

There are so many fascinating insights here that are just a part of the fabric of the story that Bissinger tells. For instance, desegregation of the schools in Odessa was delayed quite a bit, in part because no one wanted to mess up the football programs; and when they finally did desegregate, the district lines were gerrymandered so that Permian would get a greater share of the black athletes. When the star running back is severely injured, he becomes a nobody, and they don't even try to coach him back, they just replace him with somebody else; when he no longer gets the preferential treatment of a football player, he can't keep up with his classwork because he never was really taught.

The story of the many oil millionaires in nearby Midland Lee gives a personal glimpse into the oil industry, and the way that government policies had a tremendous impact on people's lives, and the striking difficulty of getting oil from Texas as compared to the Middle East. Men who happened to be in the right place at the right time were suddenly rich because of luck and politics, but because they thought it was their own business skill they all spent and invested like crazy, until suddenly the oil prices crashed and all these oil-millionaires went broke.

This edition of the book includes a look at where the players were ten years later, and it is fascinating, but mostly quite sad. For a school year or two, these young men were treated like heroes and gods, they could do no wrong and were allowed to get away with pretty much anything-- but as soon as they lost in the semi-finals and the season was over, that was gone and they were replaced by the next group of kids who had worked and dreamed of playing for Permian since they were children. Even the few who were able to play college football talk about how nothing was ever quite like playing for Permian.

Title:	Friday Night Lights
Author:	H. G. Bissinger
Date published:	1990
Genre:	Nonfiction
Number of pages:	367
Notes:	borrowed from Sapphire

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