More Fantasy, More Preppies

T is the season to be joyful, and joy is out in full force in bookstores this year. The perennial favorite The Joy of Sex decks the book stalls, together with its gleeful companion volume, More Joy of Sex. Chaster readers may prefer Joy of Cheesecake, or Joy of Photography with its predictably titled sequel (you guessed it) More Joy of Photography. And could any kitchen be complete withoutJoy of Cooking, cookbook cum encyclopedia--America's answer to Larousse Gastronomique.

Cutesier shoppers can sift through a panoply of more specialized cookbooks. Aspiring chefs are invited to cook with Paul Bocuse, Craig Claiborne and Jacques Pepin. Somewhat less continental are the offerings in Richard Simmons' Never Say Diet Cookbook--Simmons urges eaters to forego roast beef and plum pudding for the delights of cheese-less cheesecake. His recipe for "Chilly Cottage Cheese Mold" might lead one to conclude that health fanatics don't really live longer--it just feels that way. Most intriguing is The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, a creative veggie cookbook.

But enchantment is not confined to the vegetable kingdom this winter. In the face of Reaganomics and the threat of nuclear destruction, publishers all over are hoping fantasy will keep the cash registers ringing. Gnomes is a bit passe, but try The Unicorn, The Unicorn and the Lake or, for a change of pace, The Book of Gryphons. Witches might sound like a straight-laced topic for novelist Erica Jong, but don't despair: Jong has conjured up enough juicy tidbits of witchlore to transform even those cackling hags into erotic subjects.

Back on earth, the shelves are mercifully free of cat books, but Watergate has not yet lost weight. The sordid tale continues in John Dean's second book Lost Honor, for Watergate buffs who haven't yet Lost Interest. From his New Jersey hideaway, Richard Nixon continues to roop royalties with Leaders, a collection of his recollections about such world himinaries as Churchill. De Gaulle, Khrushchev and Chou En-Lai. Other Presidential publications are Jimmy Carter's memoirs, Keeping Faith, and Nancy Reagan's To Love a Child, accounts of the First Lady's own official baby--the Foster Grandparent Program.

Don't count on bringing home any holiday Harvardania--given what's on the shelves you're better off with yet another insignia sweatshirt. You could buy the $35 book of photographs. Harvard: A Living Portrait, but a free admissions brochure will furnish the same postcard visions of the University.

Livelier preppy reading lies in Items from Our Catalog, a parody of the L. L. Bean mail order guide. The booklet offers such essential items as a Norweigan bulletproof sweater, a deerskin dieter's mask and the state of Maine--price tag $76,000,000 plus $3.20 postage. Lest you fear such outdoorsy materialism is not in the holiday spirit, note that the catalog also offers a down yarmulke and Thinsulite papal vestments.

Equally outrageous is Edgar Berman's The Compleat Chauvinist. This tome features chapters like "Politics I--The Dominoes and the Domminees" and "Testesterone--The Hormone of Champions." Must reading for your favorite MCP. But sexism cuts both ways this

Take that old favorite, "Rudolph," an ironic paean to a drunk reindeer

Rudolph, the Rednosed Reindeer.

Had a very shiny nose.

And if you ever saw him.

You would even say it glows.

The lyrics are old, but the bitterness in Nelson's quiet Southern drawl suggestively evokes this tundra-beast's hurt. Mickey Raphael's Dylanesque harmonica adds to the bittersweetness, blowing a soulful lament around Rudolph's gloomy late.

A little further south, Jamaican reggae producer Joe Gibbs has compiled a group of his favorite artists to give us a Christmas ganja-style. Replete with dub noises and other rasta effects. Regeae Christmas brings the spirit of Marley's ghost (Bob that is) to interpretations of old holiday faves and new Christmas songs alike "I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas, a blistering, syncopated reworking of an old chestnut will keep serious music lovers swinging for many holidays to come