I have been very fortunate in that reading was strongly encouraged in my family. When I was younger my mother said that she would buy me all the books I would read. In fact, we have a silly family tradition that whenever you buy someone a book as a gift, you are required to read that book first. In part, so you can have the experience and knowledge that comes from reading the book yourself, and part to be able to discuss the book with the recipient as part of the gift. This strikes many people as odd because the end result is that you give someone a used book as a gift that cannot be returned.
However, after three years of law school, I found that my love of reading faded a bit. While in law school I didn’t have much time for pleasure reading yet I was reading all the time for class. Reading became more associated with work and a chore than with escape and relaxation and as a result, I began reading less and less for pleasure. I can’t tell you how many attorneys I’ve spoken to who have noticed the exact same thing happening in their lives.
As a technology enthusiast I have been intrigued by eBooks and their climb in popularity. However, going back to my traditional book-loving roots, I just couldn’t grasp the concept of reading on an electronic device and giving up the feel of a hardback book in my hands. Books are treasured possessions in my family. I’ve found that when I go to someone’s home for the first time I’m drawn to their bookshelves to see what kind of books they’re interested in and what they’ve been reading. You can tell a lot about a person by the types of books they read, and especially those they think highly enough to keep on their shelf. That’s not really an option with a library of eBooks.
This winter, things changed for me.
Click to continue reading: My Renewed Love of Reading…on the iPad
In the latest episode of Mac Power Users, David Sparks and I discuss our recent adventures in Traveling with the iPad. We discuss whether the iPad is a viable replacement for a notebook Mac when on the road. The conclusion we come to is that while the iPad can’t completely replace a Mac in all circumstances, it gets darn close. At one point in the podcast, David joked that we should flip a coin and the looser has to take their MacBook Pro to Macworld as a backup device to share while the winner gets to travel iPad only.
So it has been a couple of days since I picked up my new iPad and I wanted to give you some initial thoughts and impressions. This may not be comprehensive review, but I can tell you what I think so far.