I'm living in the 'future'...

Okay, just had another accomplishment today, where I actually *finished* a book I started...

FYI, it was Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

This is quite huge as due to work and family commitments, I usually struggle to finish anything that I start as a personal (just me) endeavour for the past 6 years since Ms5 came along. Also completed Portal2 *and Portal (original) a few weeks back which might have sparked off this whole new 'Finish what I start' mantra (2 in a row counts as life changing right? :P)

Anyways, won't make this a book review or a book club thing, but just sharing the reading experience on a non-dead tree book (last non-technical book read for pleasure would have been > 6 years ago)...

I read the Kindle version on my iPad rather than borrow my wifey's new Kindle 3 (Mother's Day present), and it was surprisingly quite readable. It was only until about 1/3 of the way through when it hit me that I'm living in the 'future'...

Let me explain... the author made reference to piano lessons her daughters were doing and mentioned a piece by Dvorak which was Humoresque No. 7 and said that it would be familiar to most people (I learnt piano for almost 8 years of my childhood, and had no idea), and went to describe how the first theme was a catchy opening theme and that the second theme changed to an overly sentimental theme, and how the piano teacher was trying to explain to her daughter how to emotionally connect with the piece when playing it...

Even though the author described it well, I found myself scratching my head and trying to work out what she was going on about, until it dawned on me that I can actually look it up and hear it for myself, right from the iPad! A quick Google search found this on YouTube and just like that, I got what she was going on about...

Yup, I'm living in the 'future'...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's the best way of reading and there is no arguing with most purist readers about the feel and refresh rate of a dead-tree book (Kindle comparisons aside), but being to look up and experience certain things I came across whilst reading an eBook, and the convenience of doing so definitely enhanced my reading experience...

Oh, and the book was pretty good, definitely recommended, but YMMV as to fully enjoy it you may need some pre-requsite life experiences (e.g. being brought up in an Asian family/ethos or have close friends that have)... :)