NIGHT-TABLE READING

Who reads what between the sheets

JOHN UPDIKE (writer): "Royal Highness, a novel by Thomas Mann [Knopf] that I have never before read; The Brass Bed, a new novel by Boston's own Alexandra Marshall [Doubleday]; and Mickey Triomphe [Dargaud], a comic book to improve my French."

RITA MAE BROWN (writer): Great Battlefields of the World, by John MacDonald (Macmillan). "I'm a passionate military historian. It's the secret vice of my life."

MICHAEL LEARNED (actress): The Lover, by Marguerite Duras (Pantheon). " 'Very early in my life it was too late,' begins one paragraph. That line hits every key on my emotional piano."

CAROL VANESS (opera singer): Skeleton Crew, by Stephen King (Putnam's). "It's so nice and peaceful after being onstage at the Met all evening."