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Suggested fall reading for the Britney Spears Fan Club: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, the radical mothers of the suffrage movement, rise up and kick some male tail in KEN BURNS and GEOFFREY C. WARD'S Not for Ourselves Alone (Knopf).

Also this month: In Weaving the Web (HarperSanFrancisco), digital-era top dog TIM BERNERS-LEE, with MARK FISCHETTI, analyzes the state of the World Wide Web, which he himself created. Portraits (Assouline) exhibits the late V.F. contributor DAVID SEIDNER'S painterly photos, which pay homage to 19th-century artists such as Ingres and Sargent. Charlie Chaplin's glee at his first movie contract and F.D.R.'s rumblings about atomic warfare are immortalized among the memorable missives collected in LISA GRUNWALD and STEPHEN J. ADLER'S Letters of the Century (Dial). PETE HAMILL'S Diego Rivera (Abrams) celebrates the passionate, political Mr. Frida Kahlo. The astounding bounty of the patronsaint photographer of odd folks and children is amassed in Mary Ellen Mark (Aperture). Atlantic Records father AHMET ERTEGUN riffs on his 50 years of recording genius, from Coltrane to Mingus to Jagger, in What'd I Say? (Welcome Rain). KATHERINE RUSSELL RICH recalls her trip to hell with cancer and back in her incredibly ballsy memoir, The Red Devil (Crown). From Alfa Romeo to Valentino, Design Directory Italy (Universe), by CLAUDIA NEUMANN, is the first in a new series Gf country-by-country compendiums. The heroine of FRAN GORDON'S unforgettable first novel, Paisley Girl (St. Martin's), suffers from a rare skin disease that patterns her flesh with paisley. Geeks, billionaires, and geeky billionaires sprout like mushrooms in MICHAEL LEWIS'S expedition through Silicon Valley, The New New Thing (Norton). Zany Afternoons (Barnes & Noble) is the entire kit and caboodle of humorist BRUCE McCALL. N.YP.D. deputy commissioner JACK MAPLE lays out how he K.O.'d New York City crime in The Crime Fighter (Doubleday), with backup from CHRIS MITCHELL. RICHARD CORMAN'S Glory (Morrow) captures the mythos and majesty of athletes from the backyard to the boxing ring. Secrets of the Flesh (Knopf), by JUDITH THURMAN, chronicles the scandalous life of Colette, the fabulous First Lady of French letters, who gave a legion of literary-minded girls a name for their cats. Evoking the bold charms and restless spirit of America, images by Ansel Adams and Robert Frank are among those featured in VICKI GOLDBERG and ROBERT SILBERMAN'S American Photography (Chronicle). Those wacky Japanese hipsters FLAT 4 PROJECT take a sentimental journey to ballyhoo the Beetle in Vintage Volkswagens (Chronicle). Figure skater and cancer survivor PEGGY FLEMING divulges her secrets for success on and off the ice in The Long Program (Pocket), with an assist by blades fancier PETER KAMINSKY. ISMAIL MERCHANT'S Paris (Abrams) revels in filming and feasting in the City of Light. In the hilarious One Bite Won't Kill You (Houghton Mifflin), ANN HODGMAN whips up 200 recipes guaranteed to tempt even the most finicky children on earth. In O.K. You Mugs (Pantheon), co-edited by LUC SANTE and MELISSA HOLBROOK PIERSON, a corral of writers sing hosannas to favorite character actors—Patti Smith on Jeanne Moreau, for example, and John Updike on Doris Day. Magnum photographer RENE BURRI brings to fight the private and public snaps of the modem-architecture giant in Le Corbusier (Birkhauser). KIM HASTREITER and DAVID HERSHKOVITS'S From AbFab to Zen (D.A.P.) is Paper magazine's indispensable guide to pop culture. He's back! Warhol-posse member BOB COLACELLO'S reissued, glittery Holy Terror (Cooper Square) examines the fife of the man who knocked modern art on its can. Fifty Years of Portraits (Arena), by PETER BEARD and ANTHONY HADEN-GUEST, is a toothsome trophy case of iconoclastic images. Suck on this: ego-crushing literary critic WALTER KIRN throws his witty coming-of-age novel, Thumbsucker (Doubleday), into the book reviewer's arena. Is that the pitter-patter of lion paws I hear?

ELISSA SCHAPPELI