iBooks advantage

It's unusual these days for me to upload an entry this early in the day, and it's quite possible that this will change later on. The looming prospect of several hours' work ahead of me is the reason for the earliness, and it's definitely time to make a start.

I've mentioned before about my passion for books and my recent conversion to reading on my iPhone. I'm still getting a kick out of it, especially since the lack of an iBook Store here means I'm limited to out-of-copyright material, and it's quite fascinating delving into stuff from the nineteenth century and earlier. My latest foray is Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels, and I'm approaching the end of the first of these. Quite apart from the oh-so-different societal mores of the time, the vocabulary is also occasionally rather strange. An accidental iPhone double-click introduced me to a welcome advantage of reading electronically - the built-in dictionary. Mr Trollope uses "duenna" rather often in this first book of the series, and it was causing me some difficulty until the iPhone provided the answer.

So, quite apart from the convenience and the usefulness while waiting for hospital appointments, reading on the iPhone can also extend my vocabulary. Most excellent.