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- BOOKS, Page 68Season's Readings
-
-
- A shelf of treasures that celebrate art, faith, history and,
- yes, pigs
-
- By STEFAN KANFER
-
- A DAY IN THE LIFE OF HOLLYWOOD
-
- (Collins; $45). On May 20, 1992, 75 photographers invaded
- Movietown for 24 hours. They emerged with a revealing album of
- stars and wannabees: tots holding their 8-by-10 glossies;
- Harrison Ford, burned out from too many interviews; Hugh Hefner
- coming to the door accompanied by a Doberman. Hollywood has
- never looked so energetic, wealthy or anxious.
-
- THE UBIQUITOUS PIG
-
- By Marilyn Nissenson and Susan Jonas (Abrams; $34.95). As
- this work whimsically demonstrates, porkers are everywhere, from
- OvidUs verses to Miss Piggy's flirtations; from cartoons to
- medical labs, where cross-species organ transplants led
- scientists to observe, "Man is more nearly like the pig than
- the pig wants to admit."
-
- NAPOLEON 1800-1840
-
- Produced and edited by Proctor Patterson Jones (Random
- House; $85). History unfurls like the tricolore in this opulent
- work tracing Bonaparte's 14 years of supremacy. Within that
- astonishingly brief period, the little Corsican won wars and
- women, revised laws and set a style still echoing in EuropeUs
- corridors of power.
-
- THE BRANCACCI CHAPEL
-
- By Umberto Baldini and Ornella Casazza (Abrams; $125). Now,
- after years of dedicated labor, the frescoes in the Florentine
- chapel look as they did in the Renaissance. The biblical figures
- painted by Masaccio, Masolino and Filippino Lippi glow anew in
- this testament to religious faith, artistic genius and
- scientific restoration.
-
- MASKS OF BALI
-
- By Judy Slattum (Chronicle; hardcover, $29.95; paperback,
- $18.95). According to the Balinese, their religion is
- monotheistic; but their God "takes as many forms as the sun has
- rays." The most dramatic of those forms are here, along with
- scores of other stark, comic or beautiful masks. Each is
- exquisitely carved; all express the yearning of an ancient and
- still dynamic culture.
-
- CLAUDE MONET
-
- By Virginia Spate (Rizzoli; $65). Paul Cezanne put down his
- fellow painter: "Monet is only an eye." Perhaps, but with that
- organ the great Impressionist analyzed the effects of sunlight
- on cathedrals and haystacks and water lilies -- and altered our
- perceptions forever. A scholarly appreciation reveals why and
- how.
-
- WIND, SAND & SILENCE
-
- By Victor Englebert (Chronicle; $35). During the past 30
- years a Belgian photographer-writer lived and traveled with the
- last nomads of Africa -- the Tuareg, Bororo and Danakil tribes.
- His diverting account shows many things these supposedly
- primitive wanderers have to teach the outsider about family
- values.
-
- TITANIC
-
- By Don Lynch (Hyperion; $60). When the "unsinkable" ocean
- liner went down on its maiden voyage in 1912, its story had
- scarcely begun. The entire epic is here, from the fatal
- encounter with an iceberg to the discovery of the sunken wreck
- in 1989. Ken Marschall's paintings imagine the past in careful,
- chilling detail.
-
- SPANISH SPLENDOR
-
- By Juan Jose Junquera y Mato (Rizzoli; $125). Pre-Christian
- Rome, the Muslim conquest, the age of Christian Kings, the
- Napoleonic era, the modern epoch -- Spanish style is long and
- wide enough to embrace all periods. This landmark book covers
- every significant design. Its descriptions are brief, but
- Roberto Schezen's photographs speak volumes.
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