There's a whole lot of ranting going on this season, and leading the pack is comedian Dennis Miller, who returns with The Rant Zone, from HarperCollins. Bill O'Reilly steps front and center with his thoughts on America's powerful and famous in The No-Spin Zone (Broadway), while Chris Matthews's Now Let Me Tell You What I Really Think joins the no-minced-words category. Michael Moore addresses Mad Cow, Mad Dow (ReganBooks) and other scourges of contemporary life, and John Corcoran's A Few Marbles Left (Bonus Books) looks at the maddeningly idiotic world of TV news, going ballistic over what used to be serious stuff.

Family affairs take the spotlight as famous offspring pen remembrances of their elders. Marina Picasso feeds the legend in Picasso, My Grandfather (Riverhead), Jo Hammett offers intimate recollections in Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers (Carroll & Graf) and Dean Martin is fondly characterized by his son Ricci in That's Amore (Cooper Square). Coincidentally, two great-great-grandsons of Darwin are being published this fall, as well.

Historical curiosities include two titles about the smallpox devastation that broke out at the onset of the Revolutionary War: Scourge (Atlantic Monthly) and Pox (FSG). Two books on the Rosenbergs speculate about Julius's relationship with a KGB handler (The Man Behind the Rosenbergs, from Enigma), and about Ethel's brother, David, whose alleged perjury sent his sister to her death (Greenglass, Random). Will Durant's Heroes of History (Simon & Schuster) is not so unusual a tome until you consider that it was written by a then 92-year-old author; and a 200-year-old tradition continues at West Point, as the academy's bicentennial is celebrated in books from Globe Pequot, Howell Press and Editions Stemmle.

So who gets the last word after 100 pages filled with more than 4,000 titles? We recommend Famous Last Words (Pomegranate) for both inspiration and wisdom when it comes time to make a graceful exit.

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The vignettes on these pages were coordinated and edited by Daisy Maryles, Laurele Riippa and Dick Donahue; writers were Michael Archer, Robert Dahlin, Charles Hix and Judith Rosen.