Los Angeles Times reporters Alex Pham and David Sarno write about how iPad-driven vooks make even Intro Chemistry interesting, something that makes me wish they’d existed when I tried, and failed, to like science in my freshman year of high school.

I’m more acquainted with the sentiments expressed by essayist Gary Shteyngart in this week’s New York Times Book Review, in which a vacation outside of cell range forces him to confess misgivings about a Facebooking, tweeting, arrow-driven, iPhoning inner life. The life that used to require only a book and a brain.

Reading a plain old physical (non blinking) book is an act as close to perfection as possible. There is nothing to fix about that experience. Yet I too am hooked on the device that is the gateway drug to vooks: the iPhone.

I am more likely to forget shoes than my iPhone. If I leave it behind by accident, I experience a wave of anxiety similar to that felt when buckling a seatbelt aboard a transcontinental flight, only to remember that the oven is still on.

This makes sense if one works and lives in a world requiring 24/7 connectivity. I do not.

I tap a keyboard most of the time, and almost none of what I write could be called “news” or “timely.” I live with my Best Friend and domestic time is typically spent within an arm’s length of each other. My pre-Best Friend best friend phones across three time zones every two days or so, the norm for much of the 39 years we’ve been acquainted.  The generous soul I consider a life-raft girlfriend here in town is, like me, temperamentally suited to short and intense meetings in person. A GPS-enhanced phone I need not.

So, what’s the allure? I think it must be a variation on a behavior I used to observe in my father. An extremely intelligent man with little formal education, he loved reading, reference books and electronic gadgets. The first two because they served as his ongoing college; the latter because mastering the newest technology was a way to have an edge over some smartass who went to Harvard but couldn’t rewire the stereo.

I managed to get the schooling he missed out on, and I’m not worrying much about keeping up with the smartasses anymore, but the iPhone is my hedge against the (many) gaps in my education and my skimpy pop-culture knowledge. And I have something he did not. The aps in my pocket supply me with English and Hebrew dictionaries; medical reference guide; new-music updates; NYTimes, the Constitution; NASA reports, food-safety database; Revised Standard Bible (loaded in anticipation of a dinner with Very Christian friends and found to be quite handy); Latin vocabulary. (Then there’s weather, the ocean-sound maker; police radio, ESPN scores and a running grocery list. A girl’s gotta take a break from thinking now and then.)

I’m holding out against vooks for now, but I suppose they’ll get me in the end.

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Expecting dry and serviceable, I got lively, amusing, informing.  Mauro’s magazine-writing roots serve him well: strong researching with an eye for the absurd.  He captures a particular sort of visionary—that egomaniacal guy pushing big, distracting and inspiring stuff…who is more than a little crazy. Such as a hugely expensive enclosed city atop a garbage dump, as was the case here. Throw in dastardly criminals, looming war and Billy Rose’s naked dancers—and you’ve got a good tale.

For more “77 Words: Tiny Book Reviews,” click here.

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Before I get Schine’s latest rave-receiving novel, I figured I’d try this older work. Verdict: Excellent and smart summer escapism. A middle-aged bookseller has an affair with a much-younger man, motivated by a mysterious love letter… oh, yeah, and lust too. Schine nimbly chronicles the flowing thoughts of characters; stream-of-consciousness, but always with a point. Her heroine, Helen, is a force of nature. This is not a book for those intimidated by the unquestioned superiority of women.

And if that wasn’t enough, here’s another 77 Words review:

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson (Knopf, 2010) -

I bought two hardcover copies… so we didn’t have to share. I had to check on journalist Mikael Blomkvist, and of course, learn the fate of the bewitching Lisbeth Salander. It’s hard to incite envy for a heroine who survives horrible abuse, but Larsson manages. Start with the first book; fall in love with this hacker, martial-arts fighter, steel-cored murderer. Third book is overloaded with Swedish-government-detail. It’s OK to flip through for good parts. Really.

For more “77 Words: Tiny Book Reviews,” click here.

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At first this writing is simple, straightforward, plain. But soon 15-year-old Charley’s voice has so fully filled the reader’s head that she sees her world as he would. And long after the book’s done, an image or word will bring it back.  Author Willy Vlautin, it seems, is both honest writer and canny hypnotist.  This search for family, sustained by love for an ailing racehorse, has the poetry, tragedy and history of any classical hero’s epic journey.

For more “77 Words: Tiny book reviews,” click here.

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Cells from Henrietta Lacks, a cancer patient in the 1950s, started something that seems more magical than scientific. Johns Hopkins doctors who took the cells from Lacks, a poor African American farmer, never imagined creating HeLa – the “immortal” cells grown in culture that live on and save lives around the world. This is tireless, deep reporting sensitively done and written with unusual clarity. The very talented Skloot erases the line between lab and humanity with inspiring deftness.
(For more “77 Words: Tiny Book Reviews, click here.)

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This is a brilliantly written story of a long friendship between two men, its immense rewards and unique pain. Hustvedt’s writing is like a hologram that allows depth perception to change with a flick of a page; no character is shortchanged, every exchange between characters is vital in its moment. The endless re-proving of an artist’s life is caught just so, and the toll taken by such a mercurial life forms the plot of this rich book.

For more “77 Words: Tiny Book Reviews,” click here.

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Yes, a distracting thriller that doubles as a medical-terminology vocabulary builder! The prolific Palmer delivers another escapist doctor drama–with appealing characters in an enjoyably improbable plot. When arrogant, charismatic doc (and neglectful dad) Petros Sperelakis is injured in a hit-and-run, some of his offspring want to pull the plug, while physician-daughter Thera becomes a sturdy advocate. Her unwavering focus and photographic memory, courtesy of Asperger Syndrome, are crucial tools as she unravels the evil back story.

For more “77 Words: Tiny Book Reviews,” click here.

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“The Swimming Pool” by Holly LeCraw (Doubleday, 2009) – This debut is an intriguing hybrid: romance fiction, dash of mystery, literary craft. LeCraw seizes on ways guilt can coexist with love, sometimes choking out happiness, other times making joy more precious. No real humor or lightness here, yet the story of marriages changed by adultery and secrets is not ultimately dark. Its Cape Cod setting lured me at first, but in the end LeCraw’s sense of that place didn’t impress, while inner landscapes were vivid indeed.

(Editor’s note, 4/21: A friend emails to point out that this book is being marketed as “chick lit” and a beach-totebag book. By all means, throw it in a tote or backpack…but chick-lit it ain’t.)

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“Gone to Soldiers” by Marge Piercy (Ballantine, 1987) – I missed this oldie until finding it (used) at Powell’s; happily it stood the test of time. The prolific Piercy wrote her heart out, tracing 10-or-so interconnected Jewish lives during WWII. Think Herman Wouk with more–and more believable—women; fewer clichés, good plot, pitch-perfect period detail. Piercy doesn’t tell a tale of wartime, she takes you right to the dinner table, the code-breaker’s desk, the resistance camp in rural France. Dig it up for beach luxuriating.

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“Gone Tomorrow (A Jack Reacher Novel)” by Lee Child (Dell, 2010) – Jack Reacher is an ex-military cop who travels light: toothbrush, cash, clothes on his back, chip on his big shoulder. He can’t resist a tangled mystery or a bad guy…and this time the bad guy is a gal.  Even better. Child gets plot and detail (including the grisly stuff) to roll forward so smoothly and swiftly that it’s damn near impossible to put the book down. Good news: yet another Reacher novel is already in the wings.

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