The Hat Book

An unusual little book, this whimsical photo-essay on hats splices studiously posed photographs with quips by Oscar Wilde, Margaret Atwood, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marguerite Duras, Samuel Beckett and others. It also contains short, witty prose passages which explore hats as expressions of identity, fashion statements or disguises. Journalist Dana Wickware, for example, writes about how his father's black homburg became inextricably tied with memories of his stepmother and a college football game. Other contributors to this collage include New York Times reporter Richard Bernstein, novelist Susan Shreve, New Yorker staffer Mary Kierstead and Michael Malone, whose books include Time's Witness . Smith's 75 tritone photos have a rich, atmospheric quality. But then again so does the subject. As hat designer Patricia Underwood notes here, ``one cannot be neutral in the presence of a hat.'' (Oct.)