This article orginally appreared in the December 16 issue of PW Daily

While the month of December is usually a slow month for new releases from publishers, it is the month when film studiosincrease their output. In fact, most of the movie tie-in books for these December releases have been in bookstores for the last two months. Here's a refresher on those books.

This year's adult tie-in selection features some visitors from other mediums, (Star Trek from TV, A Civil Action and Snow Falling on Cedars from the bestseller lists). And there're even some old novels (Robert Bloch's Psycho, James Jones' The Thin Red Line) that have been dusted off and given new cover art to help tie them closer to new films. Who says movieg rs don't read?

Two of booksellers' favorite hand-sells are now motion pictures.Jonathan Harr's acclaimed A Civil Action (Vintage, $14) opensChristmas day with John Travolta as the lawyer fighting two food companies that had been dumping a cancer-causing industrial solvent into the water table of Woburn, Mass.

Scott Smith has written the screenplay for the film A Simple Plan, based on his eponymous 1993 bestseller (St. Martin's, $6.99), a modern day Treasure of the Sierra Madre about three men who find $4.4 million in the wreckage of a plane crash.

(By the way, David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars, Vintage, $13, about a Japanese-American man who spent time in an internment camp during WW II and is on trial for murder, has been postponed until next fall, just like Guterson'ssecond novel, East of the Mountains was postponed from the fall to next April).

Russell Banks' The Sweet Hereafter (HarperPerennial, $13) took the form of an Atom Egoyan sleeper hit that received several major Oscar nominations last year, which helped bump sales of the book. This year, Banks' Affliction (HarperPerennial, $13) will open in limited release (in New York and California) toqualify for Oscar nominations. Far from a feel-good holiday movie, this is a tale of small-town and its inhabitants, particularly a man (played by Nick Nolte), haunted by the legacy of his violent, neglecting father.

James Jones' The Thin Red Line (Dell, $11.95) comes to the screen for the second time (the first was in 1964) as TerrenceMalick's much-anticipated first film in 20 years. The WWII drama set at Guadalcanal arrives hot on the heels of Saving Private Ryan ($6.60, Signet). Travolta is also in this film, with a star cast that includes Sean Penn, George Clooney, Woody Harrelsonand John Cusak.

The award for most-improved title has to go to Patch Adams, which, as a book, g s by the name Gesundheit: Bringing GoodHealth to You, the Medical System and Society Through PhysicalService, Complementary Therapies, Humor and Joy by Patch Adams(Healing Arts Press, $14.95). Robin Williams stars in this true storyof a doctor who tries to convince the medical profession to "treatthe patients, not the diseases."

The cunning Norman Bates in Robert Bloch's original novel, Psycho (Tor, $5.99) bears little resemblance to his naive screenincarnation in both the 1960 Hitchcock classic or the shot-for-shotremake by Gus Van Sant. The new film made $10 million in its firstweekend, proving that everything old is new again.

Trekkies will be happy to have a new feature film, Star TrekInsurrection (that's #9 if you're counting). Pocket Books has a tight hold on the Star Trek rights (you thought the Borg wastough -- don't even think about parodying this franchise!). There's an adult hardcover novelization by J. M. Dillard, Rick Berman ($22), a YA novelization by John Vornholt ($4.50) and a "making of" book called Secrets of Insurrection ($18).

Pocket's new trade paperback version of last year's Star Trek Next Generation: Continuing Mission ($20), about the NextGeneration TV show, contains a new chapter about the new film.

Finally, Star Trek Action ($40) is divided into three sections, with abehind-the-scenes look at what it takes to film scenes on the two TV shows ST Voyager and ST Deep Space 9, and the film STInsurrection.

Maya Angelou makes her directorial debut with the film Down in the Delta, about a black family escaping the drug-ridden streets of Chicago for its ancestral home in Mississippi. The screenplay(Hyperion, $10.95) is by Myron Goble, not Angelou.

The marquee-value of Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon inStepmom might carry over into the novelization (Warner, $6.50) if this sudsy tale of a mother-stepmother rivalry becomes a hit.

Likewise, Max Evan's 1983 novel, The Hi-Lo Country (Boulevard,$5.99), about two cowboys who fall for the same woman, may get apush when the Martin Scorsese-produced film opens in select citieson December 30.