Pavarotti

Some 200 photographs, 160 in color and many of them charming family snapshots, combine with an affectionate (but not totally uncritical) text by his wife, written with freelancer Dallas, to spotlight the famed Italian tenor's personal life and commitment to making opera widely accessible. An appealing portrait emerges of a warm, outgoing man with a passion for food (when he cooks, according to his wife, ``there is food on the wall as well as in the dishes, and cleaning up is not his specialty''), friends (during his annual holiday by the Adriatic Sea, as many as 25 people sit down to dinner every night), family, his hometown in northern Italy (the book includes eye-popping pictures of his palatial residence there) and, of course, his art, which he insists is more appreciated by those who line up for hours to buy the cheapest seats than by those who pay top dollar to sit ``down in the suits.'' Adua Pavarotti, who runs a management company that represents young singers as well as coordinates her husband's appearances, doesn't reveal anything particularly new about the tenor or his astonishing voice, but this agreeable, attractively designed book will be enjoyed by fans. ( Sept. )