Season's Readings

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.