The Sun Sign Diet

Black has designed 12 ""personalized'' diets tailored to eating habits, personality traits, libidinal tendencies, and chemical and metabolic makeup supposedly revealed by the zodiac. The book is plagued by generalizations: ``Human bodies basically come in 12 different shapes, represented by the 12 signs''; Aries is ``the hit-and-run eater,'' Virgo ``the analytical eater.'' Stargazers may initially be lured, but even the most devoted will come away unsated by this inane (``Libra, your natural elegance, warmth and magnetism, spiced with just the right touch of flirtatiousness, combine to make you one deliciously tempting dish''), often insulting (``Even walking, you Aries look like a charging ram'') work. The diet is low in calories and includes eight daily glasses of water, hardly innovative concepts. And much information is repeated, sometimes verbatim, from sign to ``personalized'' sign. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; author tour. (April 22)