Easysticks – by Annie Jo Cain

Congratulations and best wishes to the newly engaged couple!

I am 99% ecstatic about the marriage and the baby and 1% convinced that this is just an outrageously elaborate scheme orchestrated by my mother in order to get me to visit the West Coast more often. Either way, good show.

Ben and Marika

Originally uploaded by jocainster

Annie Jo is soon to become Aunt Annie Jo, thanks to these two. Bring on the baby! In the meantime, I’ll frantically practice my aunting skills. See more pictures of the big news weekend.

Where are the drawings? That’s right, I have read an entire book without pictures. Well, technically there are a few photos of the main subjects of the book.

Sadly, I am very proud of having read an entire book that wasn’t a comic. This one was at least good enough for me to have finished. The author profiles some teenage chess players in New York. There are sprinklings of chess history, or at least modern chess history that applies to teenagers.

The chess team plays various tournaments, building in size and importance as the book goes on. At the end, it just seemed to kind of fizzle out. Perhaps that was the point, that the various members of the team go off in different directions and whatnot, but I found it disappointing.

When I read the Scrabble book, Word Freak, I was way more involved in the tournaments and really inspired to play Scrabble. This book was just engaging enough to allow me to finish reading it.

It’s hard to capture the awesomeness of a flying kitty with a built-in iSight camera. Here’s my best effort so far, but it’s only a mere glimpse of the magical stunt.

Since the fall of 2005, I have been adding all the books that I read to my LibraryThing account. That’s where the little widget on the right side comes from that highlights my latest couple of reads. To take a peek at my personal catalog, head on over to http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=jocainster

To analyze my reading habits, take a look at the fun statistics page. LibraryThing is free, so hop on over and create an account if you don’t already have one. If you do, I’d love to take a peek at your catalog. Leave me your username in the comments or email it to me so I can judge you, er, I mean see all the cool books you have or have read.

I’ve now got unlimited Joost invites so if anybody needs one, drop a comment or email and I’ll send it your way. Just don’t watch ‘Chains of Love’ if you know what’s good for you.

Mt. Pisgah

Originally uploaded by jocainster.

I’m just breaking in my boots, but this still must count for something.

Generally I’m not a short story kind of gal, but I do make the exception for comics. I found a few of the stories to have superb writing and I loved the drawing throughout the book.

The characters were all well developed and true to life, especially considering that they only exist for a few pages each. A couple of the stories were a little lacking, but still worth the read.