Books a mother can love There’s no better way to celebrate Mother’s Day than with a gift book that immortalizes the maternal role. Joyce Ostin’s Hollywood Moms, a volume of radiant photographs, does just that. In Ostin’s touching tribute to womanhood, some of Tinseltown’s biggest names shed their glamorous facades, and the results are simple, stripped-down pictures that reveal the buoyancy, serenity and joy inherent in the mother-daughter relationship.

Much in the limelight, these mothers have daughters named Coco and Collette, Stella and Chelsea, girls with above-average genes who are, in the end, just regular girls. More than 50 black and white photos feature the likes of dynamic duo Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson; Madonna and a saucer-eyed Lourdes Leon; Melanie Griffith and Stella Banderas (inheritor of Antonio’s brooding stare). Anecdotes and poems from the moms themselves and Carrie Fisher’s introduction to the book offer fresh insights into the mother-daughter connection. With an intuitive eye, Ostin has captured this classic bond, revealing the reality behind the fantasy the private sides of these very public women. Ostin, a two-time breast cancer survivor, will donate all of the proceeds from Hollywood Moms to cancer research.

“The family is one of nature’s masterpieces,” wrote George Santayana, and his statement is proven true by a volume of stunning pictures called Family: A Celebration of Humanity. Photographers from around the world some of them Pulitzer Prize winners have captured the unit in its many configurations (a family, after all, can be as small as two or as large as two dozen). There are brothers and sisters, fathers and sons, children and pets; there are families in poverty and families who flourish. Spanning the globe, the book touches down in Russia, Mexico, South Africa, Australia and the United States, and the multiplicity of cultures makes for some wonderful visual juxtapositions. Artful, honest and at times, graphic (the photo of a baby, fresh from the womb, its umbilical unwound like a telephone cord, is not a sight for the weak-eyed), Family, the first volume in a series by M.I.L.K. Publishing, Ltd., offers timeless images of humanity at its best. M.I.L.K., an acronym for Moments of Intimacy, Laughter and Kinship, hopes to develop a collection of photographs showcasing diversity in family, friendship and love, and will publish two more books in September.

Two new titles celebrate one of the world’s most famous moms, that icon of family and fashion, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The woman who founded a modern-day dynasty and helped set style standards throughout the ’60s and ’70s is the inspiration behind Jay Mulvaney’s Jackie: The Clothes of Camelot. Filled with fabulous, Camelot-era photographs, Mulvaney’s book features Jackie’s dreamy dresses, frocks like confections from Oleg Cassini and other designers done in sugary pink, pastel blue and vivid tangerine, clothes fit for a queen or a First Lady. Those classic suits boxy, modest and perfectly chic are included, too. With over 300 photos and sections on Jackie’s fashion influences, her casual wear and her style during the post-Camelot years, this volume presents a well-rounded fashion portrait of one of the White House’s most regal matriarchs. Mulvaney, author of Kennedy Weddings: A Family Album, contributes lucid captions that set the context for the costumes. Dominick Dunne provides the book’s introduction.

Jackie Style by Pamela Clarke Keogh is part biography, part beauty book. Covering the former First Lady’s childhood in New York, her years at Vassar, her time in the White House and her work as an editor at Doubleday, this volume offers a behind-the-scenes look at Jackie’s life while providing advice on how to make her style your style. Jackie’s makeup and fashion ideas are included, along with never-before-seen photos and sketches, and exclusive interviews. Keogh, author of the bestselling Audrey Style, has created a loving tribute, which has an introduction by fashion designer Valentino.

Both Jackie titles are being published to coincide with a May retrospective of Kennedy’s White House wardrobe at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, an exhibit that will commemorate the 40th anniversary of Camelot.

ift books for every destination The river, the rails and the road: three R’s that symbolize the American inclination to roam. If a real-life journey isn’t part of your plan for spring, take a ride with three dazzling gift books that celebrate the pleasures of travel. In Live Steam: Paddlewheel Steamboats on the Mississippi System, photographer Jon Kral pays tribute to the behemoth boats that cruised the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in the days before airplanes and automobiles changed the way Americans travel. Beautiful but impractical, these dinosaurs, now relegated to the tourist trade, are many-tiered, nearly gaudy, their names Delta Queen, Julia Belle Swain as prissy and genteel as the wrought-iron finery that lines their decks. Only six of the boats continue to operate on the Mississippi River system, and Kral has captured them all in stunning sepia duotone. Accompanied by text that blends steamboat history with salty, first-person accounts from the likes of musician and former riverboat captain John Hartford and Captain Clark C. “Doc” Hawley, a National Rivers Hall of Fame member, Kral’s book is the first to go below decks for an inside look at the workings of these romantic vessels. More than 100 elegant photographs convey a sense of “boat life” the ornate dining areas, the infernal heat of the engine room, the fury of river water cut by the big wheel. We meet the people behind the boats porters and deckhands who live in dorm-sized quarters. From grand staircases to steam whistle stacks, Kral delivers the fancy flourishes, the details that comprise the whole of these elaborate crafts. This isn’t travel for speed or expedience; it’s travel for the sake of experience, lazy, picturesque and pleasing. With Live Steam, Kral reminds us that the journey itself is just as important as the destination.

They have names like California Zephyr and Coast Starlight, Hawkeye and Sunset. They cut through the night touching lonely lives with the sound of their wistful whistles. Possibly the most mythologized method of travel, the train is celebrated in Starlight on the Rails, a collection of duotone photographs taken by a skilled group of artists over the course of five decades. The focus here is on railroads at night, a visual paradigm that has produced startling combinations of darkness and light photographs that look like film noir stills, marked by sparks, stars and smoke. All the mystique of the locomotive is captured here: the great, greasy wheels and spumes of steam, the engines slick and sleek.

From freight yard to roundhouse, depot to mainline, Starlight takes in all the stops made on a typical 12-hour night of railroading. The book’s broad route spans the country, taking a detour to Japan, where steam locomotion peaked in popularity in 1949. Evoking the smell of diesel, the rhythm of wheel on rail, the pictures deliver the barely bridled momentum of these brute machines. The text, written by photographer Jeff Brouws, provides fascinating information on the singular challenges and rewards of night photography, while delivering background on the trains themselves. Icons of Americana, locomotives never fail to awaken wanderlust in the hearts of humans. Starlight shows us why.

Along Route 66 by Quinta Scott is an intriguing testament to this country’s sense of restlessness. Known as “the main street of America,” Route 66 has provided the backdrop for a television show, been the subject of a song, and served as an emblem of the American experience for writers like John Steinbeck. Scott adds to the allure of the road with a book of black and white photographs documenting the architectural styles that sprang up along the route from the 1920s through the 1950s. There are roadhouses, tourist courts and diners, some of which have a touch of kitsch. A story lies behind every building. We learn about Frank Redford, the man who built the wonderfully whimsical Wigwam Motel, an eye-catching assemblage of tipis erected in Holbrook, Arizona. There are stops at the Regal Reptile Ranch in Alanreed, Texas, and the Cotton Boll Motel in Canute, Oklahoma (the motel’s marquee tempted travelers: Come Sleep All Day Tub ∧ Shower.) The purpose of all this ingenuity on the part of proprietors was to make some fast cash by stopping tourists in their tracks, a gimmick that worked for a while. With Along Route 66, professional photographer Quinta Scott has compiled a fun and unforgettable collection of images that immortalizes the great American odyssey.

On the couch with the bookish babes of Bibliotherapy You need therapy, sister Bibliotherapy to be exact. Subtitled The Girl’s Guide to Books for Every Phase of Our Lives, this is one glorious and hilarious guide to a life’s worth of literature. From “When You’re Feeling Unnoticed and Unloved: Bad Hair Babe Books” to “When You Desperately Need to Believe That There’s a Purpose to It All: Embracing-Your-Inner-Light Books,” there are chapters for every occasion and stage of a woman’s life. Think about it the books we read really do show us where we’ve been and where we’re headed. We loved Eloise during those frisky days of childhood and Judy Bloom’s books during our angst-ridden adolescence. Then, in college, along came Gloria Steinem who taught us to wake up and smell the patriarchy. And here we are, years later, reaching desperately for a copy of Raising Your Spirited Child. Times have changed.

But how to begin the daunting task of compiling a guide that spans a lifetime? Authors Beverly West and Nancy Peske first cousins, dear friends, editors and authors of the sleeper hit Cinematherapy: The Girl’s Guide to Movies for Every Mood say it involved many hours of girl talk. Beverly says, “We sat down and said, OK, let’s think of every book we ever read.” Not a task for the faint of memory. “Nancy and I, both being readers, have turned to books in big moments in our lives, and even in smaller ones . . . [we] thought about what the landmark phases were in a woman’s life and thought about the books that have either had a big impact on the way women experience those stages as a population like menopause or puberty and also the stuff we turn to that helps us cope with loss, or divorce, or when we’ve suddenly gone deaf to our inner voice and need to reinvent ourselves.” Women may indeed use books differently than guys do, turning to them in times of need, but that doesn’t mean Bibliotherapy excludes books by that other gender. On the contrary, says Nancy, “we have books that are classic ‘guy’ literature but that speak to women.” Beverly points out, “we’ve not only looked at women’s literature but at all books that have influenced us as people, not just as women.” In other words, there’s some Bukowski in the mix, too.

Both West and Peske gained new insight by revisiting the books that influenced their lives. Beverly rediscovered Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance while Nancy read Rebecca with new eyes. “I had read Rebecca probably a half dozen times in my 20s, and when I went back to write about it, I started . . . discovering in the process of writing what that book was about, how I read it [at that time] . . . Those themes were very resonant for me in my 20s.” What do the authors have on their bedside tables at present? Nancy is leisurely leafing through the first Harry Potter adventure and is also “going through a big spirituality phase,” reading The Jesus Mysteries and books about the goddess tradition. She’s also working on a book by a wiccan high priestess who wrote Book of Shadows. Beverly just finished writing a book for Falcon Press on the remarkable women of New Mexico goddesses in their own right so she’s been immersed in reading a lot of biography. “I just finished an autobiography of Mable Dodge Louhan. She was like the madame de style of the Southwest . . . I’m hung up on unmanageable women at present, being one myself.” She may be unmanageable, but these two certainly manage to work well as a team, complementing each other at every turn. Beverly kids Nancy, “We can’t get out of this collaboration. She’s going to be staring at me over turkey at Thanksgiving.” Features of the book include Notes from Nancy’s and Bev’s Reading Journals; choice passages from each book followed by a digestible, witty discussion of it; “Points to Ponder” about each entry; “Can I get that printed on a coffee mug?” quotes from authors and nonauthors alike; and a laugh-out-loud “Books to Be Thrown with Great Force” section. So what’s next for Peske and West? Audiotherapy, perhaps? They’ve considered it they say, but next on their plate is the March 2002 release of Advanced Cinematherapy, the follow-up course for those who passed Cinematherapy 101. For now, however, we strongly recommend taking some time to get in touch with your inner bibliophile.

Katherine H. Wyrick lives in Little Rock, Arkansas.

s for Black History Month Revisiting an era that rent the nation, King: The Photobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. is the perfect way for readers to commemorate Black History Month. The first of its kind and a wonderful gift book, King is an intimate look at the life of a multifaceted figure. Told in graphic black and white, King’s story unfolds in a series of photographs, some of which have never been seen before, and the result is a visual retrospective almost as mighty as the man himself.

Photographer Bob Adelman assembled the starkly beautiful, sobering images that comprise this volume, and it’s a detailed compilation that spans more than a decade. With authoritative text written by National Book Award winner Charles Johnson, this in-depth look at one of our most revered leaders is organized around the major events in King’s life, from the 1957 prayer pilgrimage in Washington, D.C., to the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Oslo in 1964. But most touching are the simple moments in which the great man seems mortal: King dozing in a chair in an airport; struggling over the composition of a sermon; having a strained moment at home with his wife Coretta. While documenting the life of King, the book also captures the essence of a violent epoch, presenting the triumphs and trials that characterized the civil rights movement and doing so with an intensity that makes the events of the ’50s and ’60s feel strangely immediate. Most importantly, King penetrates the surface of its subject, presenting both the public and the private sides of an icon, a superman of sorts who was, after all, human.

Black history is at the reader’s fingertips with Velma Maia Thomas’ ingenious three-dimensional book Freedom’s Children: The Passage from Emancipation to the Great Migration. The second volume in a series chronicling black history and the sequel to Thomas’ best-selling Lest We Forget, Freedom’s Children addresses the years following the Civil War, examining the challenges faced by slaves tasting liberty for the first time. With illustrations, photographs and one-of-a-kind interactive elements, this intriguing book requires reader participation. A letter from a Freedmen’s Bureau agent is tucked into an envelope. A miniature version of The Freedmen’s Third Reader a primer studied by illiterate slaves invites perusal. A ticket for the Colorado and Southern Railway, which bore freedmen and freedwomen west in search of better lives, and script money folded into pockets lend an air of authenticity to Thomas’ narrative, making Freedom’s Children something of a fold-out museum, a mini-archive. Thomas’ illuminating text, which follows the lives of former slaves, along with the replicas of documents and artifacts that illustrate the era, make Freedom’s Children both an invaluable work of scholarship and a beautiful gift volume.

A book that delivers the nobility, beauty and dignity of the world’s most mysterious continent, Sensual Africa by photographer Joe Wuerfel captures the essence of a place and its people in pictures that are sheer poetry. Wuerfel visited the Cape Verde Islands, Tanzania and Namibia, where he lived among a nomadic tribe of herdsmen called the Himba, and the results are images tempered by a golden tint, photographs that have the warm haze of yellowed lace, of something aged. Dressed in calfskin loincloths and beaded belts, the bodies of the Himba seem burnished. At times, in this light, Africa itself appears apocalyptic a landscape yellow-white, barren and bone-dry in which zebras look otherworldly, and black baobab trees stand like supplicants beneath an unyielding sky. In his travels through Africa, Wuerfel captured archetypal images of the masculine and the feminine, of youth and age. Young Himba girls flirty yet demure seem to be sharing a secret; Tanzanian women mourn, their heads shaven in honor of the dead; a bare-chested Himba boy runs with a bow and arrow. Foreign yet familiar, the postures of these isolated people transcend language and culture and remind us of what it means to be human. In their gestures, we can see ourselves.

An interview with photographer Peter Beard, who has spent 25 years on the continent, is also included in Sensual Africa. A remarkable visual experience, this is a stunning volume that Africaphiles will love.

The eyes have it Mother’s birthday? Nephew’s graduation? Second cousin twice removed’s wedding? If you need help selecting a gift for any occasion, you’ve come to the right place. What gift is always the right color, the right size, and the right price? Why, books, of course! Do you know someone who is so trendy that when they go shopping, they think their clothes are out of style before they can get them to the cash register? Laugh and learn with Holly Brubach’s A Dedicated Follower of Fashion (Phaidon, $29.95, 071483887X). A collection of 27 essays published during the past two decades, Brubach’s writings offer insight on trends, designers, models, and photographers. There are chapters dedicated to men, shoes, visionaries, and plus-sizes. Luckily, the photographs featured were carefully selected, so some of fashion’s . . . er, more outrageous phases are kept within the text. It is a witty, educated observation that isn’t muddled into tedium or grandiosity. Brubach takes a scenic route from Paris to New York, with plenty of stops along the way.

One hundred and five years ago, a subtitle reading An Illustrated Monthly was added to the masthead of National Geographic. Since then, photographs featured in the magazine have told stories that reflect our world and the times in which we live. Beginning with those early photographs, six authors have compiled an era-by-era account of the 20th century in National Geographic Photographs: The Milestones. Often working in rigorous or rudimentary settings, many of the photographers featured are true pioneers of photojournalism. Look on the wedding portrait of a late 19th-century Zulu couple; observe the conditions of an early 20th-century Mexican cigarette factory; visit Lappland, New York, the Arctic, and scores of other places and events that were hallmarks of the past century. Very often, photographers would return to a previous site with mixed results; progress is evident in many of these revisits, while other photographs reflect areas that remain untouched by time.

If breathtaking scenery and colorful history excites someone on your gift list, you can’t do much better than Scotland. Checkmark Books has captured the majesty and mystery of this gorgeous country in Heritage of Scotland: A Cultural History of Scotland and Its People ($29.95, 06003552609). Author Nathaniel Harris’s enormous undertaking covers everything from Scotland’s landscape to its literary offerings. Beautiful artwork and photographs are featured alongside an abundance of information about Scottish people and their traditions. And yes, clans, kilts, and bagpipes are included, but readers will soon discover there is so much more! Visit the Highland Games, look at priceless works of art, learn the complex linguistic history of the Scottish people, observe the country’s most famous structures, many dating back to prehistoric times. Heritage of Scotland is a great item for history buffs and anyone with Scottish roots.

It’s a classic dilemma: You’re standing in the video store, thinking, What’s that movie from the 1940s, the one where John Wayne plays a naval officer and has an affair with a nurse, played by Donna Reed? This dilemma is easily resolved with VideoHound’s War Movies: Classic Conflict on Film (Visible Ink, $19.95, 1578590892). Mike Mayo has compiled and arranged over 200 war movies according to the war depicted. This guide includes many documentaries and overlooked films, like The Fighting Sullivans and Come and See. There are sidebars profiling famous actors, listings of full movie credits, and 200 photographs to peruse. Mayo provides commentary and synopsis for each film, mentioning the controversies and histories surrounding some of Hollywood’s most powerful movies. Amid trivia and quotes, Mayo is kind enough to include a See Also section for each film, for moviewatchers who are interested in other films that are similar in content, direction, or have the same stars . . . just in case your first choice has been rented out!

Gifts for Black History Month Revisiting an era that rent the nation, King: The Photobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. is the perfect way for readers to commemorate Black History Month. The first of its kind and a wonderful gift book, King is an intimate look at the life of a multifaceted figure. Told in graphic black and white, King’s story unfolds in a series of photographs, some of which have never been seen before, and the result is a visual retrospective almost as mighty as the man himself.

Photographer Bob Adelman assembled the starkly beautiful, sobering images that comprise this volume, and it’s a detailed compilation that spans more than a decade. With authoritative text written by National Book Award winner Charles Johnson, this in-depth look at one of our most revered leaders is organized around the major events in King’s life, from the 1957 prayer pilgrimage in Washington, D.C., to the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Oslo in 1964. But most touching are the simple moments in which the great man seems mortal: King dozing in a chair in an airport; struggling over the composition of a sermon; having a strained moment at home with his wife Coretta. While documenting the life of King, the book also captures the essence of a violent epoch, presenting the triumphs and trials that characterized the civil rights movement and doing so with an intensity that makes the events of the ’50s and ’60s feel strangely immediate. Most importantly, King penetrates the surface of its subject, presenting both the public and the private sides of an icon, a superman of sorts who was, after all, human.

Black history is at the reader’s fingertips with Velma Maia Thomas’ ingenious three-dimensional book Freedom’s Children: The Passage from Emancipation to the Great Migration . The second volume in a series chronicling black history and the sequel to Thomas’ best-selling Lest We Forget, Freedom’s Children addresses the years following the Civil War, examining the challenges faced by slaves tasting liberty for the first time. With illustrations, photographs and one-of-a-kind interactive elements, this intriguing book requires reader participation. A letter from a Freedmen’s Bureau agent is tucked into an envelope. A miniature version of The Freedmen’s Third Reader a primer studied by illiterate slaves invites perusal. A ticket for the Colorado and Southern Railway, which bore freedmen and freedwomen west in search of better lives, and script money folded into pockets lend an air of authenticity to Thomas’ narrative, making Freedom’s Children something of a fold-out museum, a mini-archive. Thomas’ illuminating text, which follows the lives of former slaves, along with the replicas of documents and artifacts that illustrate the era, make Freedom’s Children both an invaluable work of scholarship and a beautiful gift volume.

A book that delivers the nobility, beauty and dignity of the world’s most mysterious continent, Sensual Africa by photographer Joe Wuerfel captures the essence of a place and its people in pictures that are sheer poetry. Wuerfel visited the Cape Verde Islands, Tanzania and Namibia, where he lived among a nomadic tribe of herdsmen called the Himba, and the results are images tempered by a golden tint, photographs that have the warm haze of yellowed lace, of something aged. Dressed in calfskin loincloths and beaded belts, the bodies of the Himba seem burnished. At times, in this light, Africa itself appears apocalyptic a landscape yellow-white, barren and bone-dry in which zebras look otherworldly, and black baobab trees stand like supplicants beneath an unyielding sky. In his travels through Africa, Wuerfel captured archetypal images of the masculine and the feminine, of youth and age. Young Himba girls flirty yet demure seem to be sharing a secret; Tanzanian women mourn, their heads shaven in honor of the dead; a bare-chested Himba boy runs with a bow and arrow. Foreign yet familiar, the postures of these isolated people transcend language and culture and remind us of what it means to be human. In their gestures, we can see ourselves.

An interview with photographer Peter Beard, who has spent 25 years on the continent, is also included in Sensual Africa. A remarkable visual experience, this is a stunning volume that Africaphiles will love.

Unwrapping the past Certainly not everything in the world is getting better and better, but illustrated books may well be. Color reproduction gets ever more precise and lush, and no book demonstrates this better than what is hands-down the most beautiful book on King Tut ever published Tutankhamun, with text by T.G.H. James and photographs by A. De Luca. James was for a long time Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, and De Luca is considered one of the foremost photographers of jewelry and statuary in the world. The text is vivid and comprehensive, and explains many aspects of the story of the boy king, but the words are attendant upon the text in this volume. Primarily they serve as detailed captions for De Luca’s breathtaking photographs. The pictures capture the sheen of gold and lapis, the details of texture and inlay, as never before. From the quartz-eyed, ivory-toothed hippo beside the king’s bed to a gold-beaded bracelet with an amethyst scarab, the range of shameless opulence is amazing. Every time you turn the page you find another close-up view of a work of art demonstrating staggering workmanship. No fan of ancient Egypt, and certainly no Tutophile, will be able to resist this book.

While you’re in an Egyptian mood, you should turn to another beautiful new book, Valley of the Golden Mummies, by Zahi Hawass (Abrams, $49.50, ISBN ). Hawass is Egypt’s undersecretary of state for the Giza Monuments. He has made many discoveries of his own, including the tombs of the workers who built the pyramids, the tombs of some of Khufu’s officials and evidence about how the pyramids were built. He also directed the conservation of the Great Sphinx at Giza. Many artifacts appear in this book’s impressive illustrations, but there is also much more to round out the story. Handsome color photographs document excavations, restorations, tomb sites and many other fascinating archaeological tidbits that place the artifacts in context and help explain their role in the ancient world. The book is a pleasure to look at and a delight to read, and helps bring alive an era that has captured the imagination of the modern world.

Back to where they once belonged: the Beatles score more hits There are at least a dozen clever and cute ways I thought about starting this piece. When I had four books to cover, a play on ÔFab Four’ came to mind; soon enough, however, more books came rolling in, so that idea was a goner. Then there was the idea to open with some sort of reference to the Beatles being Ôhere, there, and everywhere,’ but that idea was quickly snapped up for the cover. Of course, lifting a phrase from “Paperback Writer” was a given. So, get ready folks, Here Comes the Pun . . . .

Sorry. I just couldn’t resist.

The truth of the matter is, no introduction can briefly explain and justify the 40-year phenomenon that surrounds this band. Whether we loved them as suited mop-tops, psychedelic hippies, or as Paul McCartney’s band before Wings, the Beatles are once again making chart-topper history. And this time, they’re going after the bestseller lists.

The biggest Beatle book this season by far is The Beatles Anthology. What makes this book so special is that it was written by John (yes, John), Paul, George, and Ringo, with a little help from their friends. Be prepared for stimulation overload: hundreds of photos, lots of text, and snappy graphics and design makes this more of a textbook worthy of study than a book one politely flips through while waiting patiently for a friend to finish her unexpected phone call. Set aside a lot of time for The Beatles Anthology; it deserves your attention and you will want to savor its offerings instead of gulping them. Photos never before seen in print, anecdotes and memorabilia unearthed and assembled, finally, finally available in one package. Year by year, different perspectives are offered on all sorts of events and happenings. Frame by frame, photos reveal the Beatles effect on and response to these events and happenings; it’s rather like operating a time machine. For example, one photograph shows the Fab Four crunched in a single-file line; at a glance, Beatle- philes will know this is seconds before they cross Abbey Road and add fuel to the “Paul is dead” rumors. The Beatles Anthology was obviously a painstaking endeavor how in the world did they find all this stuff? but the result is about as exhaustive as can be offered in a single volume. With all the commentaries and accounts that have been written about the Beatles over the years, it’s nice to have the lads telling their own story for a change.

Though I myself am partial to George, Paul is still the clear favorite, even among books. Two recent releases are very different in nature but offering charming observations about the incredibly talented Sir Paul McCartney. The first, Paul McCartney: I Saw Him Standing There is a collection of post-Beatle photographs compiled by Jorie B. Gracen, who has photographed McCartney for nearly 25 years. This is a carefully crafted book, as Gracen recounts the circumstances surrounding each photograph and provides mementos that accent her images. Her unique access to McCartney captures Paul, the husband; Paul, the father; and ultimately, Paul the performer (so up-close you may feel the urge to dab his sweaty brow with a cloth). One of only two women whose photographs have been used on a McCartney album cover, Gracen is publishing many of her exclusive photographs for the very first time. The second book is Bulfinch Press’s Paul McCartney: Paintings. Until recently, McCartney elected to keep his painting a private outlet for him to escape the world’s doldrums and fulfill his creative need in a different way. The result is startling; McCartney has received critical acclaim for his work, which ranges from dark and sinister to fun and whimsical. Interviews and commentary complement the plates, and a great deal of attention is given to friend Willem de Kooning’s influence on McCartney’s work. Perhaps the most endearing aspect of this beautiful book is Linda McCartney’s photography showing painter Paul in his studio, as she captures the love that is reflected on both sides of her camera.

Think you could be a contender on an all-Beatles episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Test your Beatles savvy with The Ultimate Beatles Quiz Book II. Michael J. Hockinson offers the ultimate in Beatles trivia; this is not just “name Ringo’s eldest child” kind of stuff, this is hard core and nit-picky. Which star did John Lennon publicly reveal he’d like to manage? What was to be the title of the novel Stu Sutcliffe was writing? Beginning with the year 1100 (no typo here, folks yes, the year 1100) and ending with 1999, Hockinson carefully takes us on a yearly journey of information, reincarnated information whose previous fate had probably been either footnotes or editors’ pens. To tweak the noses of Beatle buffs even more, Hockinson tells much more when he offers the answers at the end of each chapter. Even if you have every fanzine article ever published about Liverpool’s most famous sons, you’re bound to learn something more here. So you thought you’d seen the last of the Fab Four? You Should Have Known Better.

Say the word If you find yourself singing, “give me more, give me more, give me more,” then check out these other Beatle-related titles: ¥ She Came in Through the Kitchen Window is a cookbook with recipes glibly named “Any Thyme At All,” “Ticket to Rice,” etc. Goofy fun for fab cooks who are wild about the fab four.

Linda McCartney: A Portrait, a chatty commentary written by close friend Danny Fields.

Yes Yoko Ono, a gorgeously bound book of Yoko’s artwork, includes CD.

In My Life: The Brian Epstein Story by Debbie Geller, available in December, is a collection of first-hand accounts of the haunting life of the Beatles’ troubled but brilliant manager. ¥ The Beatles Complete Scores consists of over 1,000 pages, with full scores and lyrics to over 200 titles. Photos and discography included.