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For some reason, I was unaware of the fact that there were so many Buffy comic books before the new Season 8 run. This is the first book in an omnibus series that collects them all in chronological order. This one starts with "All's Fair", a story about Dru and Spike on a rampage at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, which I didn't particularly enjoy, but then it gets more Buffy-centric. "The Origin" is a comic-book adaptation of Joss Whedon's original screenplay for the Buffy movie; the stories after that cover the time between the movie and the TV series, while Buffy was on her own without a Watcher. She and Pike take a trip to Las Vegas to hunt down vampires in "Viva Las Buffy!". In "Dawn & Hoopy the Bear" we get a story of Dawn's experience while Buffy has run off and their parents are on their way to divorce; a teddy bear ensorceled with a djinn meant for the slayer is mistakenly delivered to Dawn, but her distracted mother just thinks Dawn has a wild imagination when she takes about the bear coming alive. Then, in "Slayer, Interrrupted" we get the story of Buffy's stay in the mental hospital, which is referred to in the TV series. Interspersed with these, we also get some interesting parts of Giles' path to becoming Buffy's Watcher.

I had a little bit of trouble getting into this book because I didn't enjoy the first story; I know some people really love Spike and Dru, but a whole story with them killing and destroying just isn't my thing. In this story and in some of the others, I felt like there might be references to characters or events in the TV series, but I'm not familiar enough with them to catch it-- and not sure I care enough to go to the trouble of looking it up. Angel shows up in the Las Vegas story, and I wondered about the time lines of that, but again, I guess I'm not familiar enough with all the details of his back story to know how this fits in.

As Scott Allie points out in his brief introduction, these stories include Dawn-- which is an interesting choice. Like him, I'm glad that we got the story of "Dawn and Hoopy the Bear"; but other things make me wonder a bit about how things would have worked without Dawn being there. For instance, Dawn is the one who reads Buffy's diary (because she misses her), and that is how Buffy ends up getting sent to a mental institute.

Artwork for comic books based on TV shows and movies can be a little strained sometimes-- either they are too creepily like the actors or they aren't quite recognizable. In this case, I found the artwork to be quite good, and it certainly never distracted me from the story being told.

I enjoyed this enough that I'd be interested to read the other Buffy Omnibus collections, although I'm a bit intimidated by the fact that there are 7 volumes.

Title:	Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Volume 1
Author:
Date published:	2007
Genre:	Young Adult, Graphic Novel, Horror
Series:	Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Number of pages:	296

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Bryson is an author who is knowledgeable and entertaining at the same time – a combination not to be taken for granted! As stated in the title this book gives a general overview of the history of the world, scientifically speaking, and includes glimpses into a wide variety of subjects – chemistry, physics, geography, lots of -ologies, but in a way that they are comprehensible. Bryson talked with a large number of specialists, visited them, learned from them, asked lots of questions. And we get his summaries.

One of the best parts of the book is the stories about various characters. Many of them incredibly strange. Brilliant – but strange. One Oxford professor that I remember reading about was extremely absent-minded. Upon returning home one evening, his wife told him to go upstairs and change for their dinner party that evening. He got undressed, but then couldn't remember what he was doing, so he changed into pajamas and got into bed. His wife was duly exasperated when she found him shortly thereafter. Or the chemist who insisted on tasting all of his experiments, something which clearly aided his death in arriving sooner. Or the fact that if a meteor were to actually hit earth, it wouldn't be visible to the naked eye until one second before it hit earth, and the impact could easily damage a whole continent and most likely throw the whole ecosystem wildly off-kilter. In the process of reading this book, two facts became more clear to me:

1) we often take for granted things for which the margin of error (or possibility) is actually incredibly narrow.

2) there must indeed be a Creator!

Title:	A Short History of Nearly Everything
Author:	Bill Bryson
Date published:	2003
Genre:	Nonfiction
Number of pages:	478
Notes:	from c. knapp

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This story is set in India which means that as one reads, bits of culture are picked up along the way. In a quiet and delightful way. A number of stories are woven together into one novel, with themes running through each of them, and deep connections. Kanai is a well-to-do Indian going to visit his aunt, to read a story that his uncle wrote and left to him years ago. Piya was born to Indian parents but grew up in America, and is back in India to study dolphins. Fokir is a man who catches crabs for a living and knows the islands and rivers and tides in the Bay of Bengal as well as his own home.

As always, nothing is quite as clear as it seems. People meet each other and their initial reactions are rarely correct. Especially in this setting, where there are so many factors that are unseen. Each of the characters in this book is searching for something .. meaning, a place to call home, worth, accomplishment, a better life, love. In various ways, with varying amounts of success. Fokir is a simple man who is viewed as inferior by many, but Piya sees him as someone who is knowledgeable, and could be a boon for her research. This is a beautiful example of someone who sees differently. So often we get caught up in matching things to the standards of the world, but Piya refuses to play into that and is willing to see value in anyone around her. Her example, while not perfect, is a reminder to me to be careful of who and how I see those around me.

Title:	The Hungry Tide
Author:	Amitav Ghosh
Date published:	2005
Genre:	Fiction
Number of pages:	329
Notes:	from Karen K.Y.

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This delightful, entertaining book is written in the style of Chinese stories, and set in an ancient China filled with magic, monsters, and gods. The story is narrated by Yu Lu, known as Number Ten Ox, from the village of Ku-Fu as he goes to find help to save the children of the village who have been accidentally poisoned. He goes to Peking to find a sage who will help, but they all turn their noses up at his bag of copper coins-- until he stumbles upon an alley where the ancient, drunken Li Kao is slumbering-- a sage who always introduces himself with the fact that he has "a slight flaw in his character." As it turns out, Li Kao may be the only man who would have been capable of helping Number Ten Ox and his village, because their quest for the great root of power which may cure the children leads them all over the country, facing powerful humans, labyrinths, and terrible monsters, until they eventually realize their quest overlaps with the story of minor deity, the princess of birds, who was unwittingly betrayed by her handmaidens and lost divine protection and access to heaven.

The tone of this book is perfectly suited to the setting of the story and the characters. Every time Li Kao introduces himself, he mentions that slight flaw in his character. More than once, the two adventurers face near-certain death, and before they dive in they decide what they will request the Yama Kings to let them be reborn as-- for Li Kao, a sloth, and for Number Ten Ox, a cloud. As they gather and lose other members of their parties, this becomes a recurring refrain as they invite their friends to join them in declaring what they will ask to come back as just before they face deadly danger together.

At first, this story seems to be just a wandering tale of strange encounters, but eventually Li Kao puts together the pieces of the story, and it seems that every little detail is a piece of the puzzle-- even the story of the village of Ku Fu and the section of wall that doesn't connect to any of the rest of the Great Wall because the general building it had a dream where he met the August Personage of Jade who adjusted his maps. All the strange characters they meet along the way seem to have a part to play or some key piece of information that allows Li Kao eventually to put the entire puzzle together-- Miser Shen, who later falls in love with Lotus Cloud and wants to be reborn as a tree named "Old Generosity"; the scholar Henpecked Ho and his daughter Fainting Maid, who always falls two steps back and six to the left; the Ancestress and the fearsome Duke of Ch'in, and even the greedy villagers Ma the Grub and Pawnbroker Fang.

The magnificent ending is completely satisfyint and beautiful, and none of the pieces of the story seemed forced when I finally discovered the whole story of what Li Kao and Number Ten Ox's quest was really about, and who was guiding things all along with an unseen hand.

Title:	Bridge of Birds
Author:	Barry Hughart
Date published:	1984
Genre:	Fantasy, Fairy Tale
Number of pages:	248
Notes:	loaned to me by Catey

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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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In this follow-up to Bloodring and Seraphs, Thorn once again finds herself battling the powers of Darkness. Even though she just helped the Seraphs defeat the Fallen Seraph Forcas, and freed the cherub Mistress Amethyst and her Seraph mate, they also barely contained a major darkness-- a dragon imprisoned under the Trine. In addition, a new mage has come to town-- supposedly to teach Thorn all the training she missed when she was forced to leave Enclave at such a young age, but he is arrogant and unpleasant, and she can tell there is something he is hiding from her.

For some reason, this book didn't seem quite as exciting or enthralling ad the first two; in some ways, it feels like a rehash of the things that have happened before. Once again, demon spawn attack the town, and they are organized, not just a mindless swarm. Thorn and her friends manage to fight them off with heavy casualties, and as before Thorn agonizes over whether or not to summon the Seraphs to help them fight, since that may cost the lives of the townsfolk. Thorn is also agonizing over her irresistible attraction to the Kylen, Thadd, and still won't make any decision about Eli's continued interest in her-- even though he reveals some interesting things about human-mage interactions and the joy or fear that can result. Thorn also continues to agonize (notice a pattern?) over her ex-step-daughter Ciana, who continues to do powerful things with the Seraph pin she wad given for protection-- who, apparently, is no longer quite human, along with her uncle Rupert, although we're never told exactly what they've become.

Eventually, there's another big drawn out battle. Thorn gets some new champards pledging to fight alongside her, and they do their best in a battle against all the odds. Thorn eventually comes face to face with the dragon-- and rather than a hideous beast, a "Big Bad Ugly," it is an angel of light, a fallen seraph, who tries to get her to join him. Thorn slips into the river of time again, and continues the fight there, resisting the power and seduction of the dragon Azazel. Eventually, after a lot of death and destruction and loss, the dragon is defeated.

The ending seemed particularly unsatisfying. There is some indication that one of the seraphs has been playing Thorn, manipulating her to accomplish his own ends-- but no explanation or more details. Similarly, we don't get any more answers (or even that many more hints or suggestions) about the true nature of the seraphs and cherubs, or what the mages are and why they came into existence. The book just ends with Thorn and her remaining champards recovering from battle, Thorn still not sure where things are going next or how she will sort our her relationships to them all. I almost thought Hunter was setting up yet another sequel with this open-ended conclusion, but I don't think that is the case either.

Title:	Host
Author:	Faith Hunter
Date published:	2007
Genre:	Fantasy
Series:	Rogue Mage Novels
Number of pages:	340

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