One of the wonderful things about the variety of books is that there's always something for everyone. So your mom's a Beatlemaniac? Best friend can't get enough of Monty Python? Sister adores Audrey Hepburn? Brother's just about worn out his copies of the James Bond movies? Here you'll find the perfect gift books for them, and for others.

For the Audrey Hepburn fan
She was Sabrina, she was Holly Golightly, she was Eliza Dolittle, but to her son Sean, she was simply Mummy. "Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit: A Son Remembers" by Sean Hepburn Ferrer (Atria Books, $29.95) is his version of her life story.

There are at least seven biographies of Hepburn out there, and this one is not the most exhaustive, but it's likely the most personal. It's as much a coffee table book as it is a biography, decked out with photos and memorabilia from Hepburn's life. Naturally, Hepburn Ferrer has access to documents and pictures that no one else would have, and the book benefits accordingly. A two-page spread features all of his mother's expired passports; one photo showing an older Hepburn surrounded by her dogs, is the image her son keeps next to his bed.

Atria Books

Mixed in with numerous glamorous, movie-star portraits of Hepburn (and her impossibly long neck) are personal snapshots that could have come out of anyone's family album. It's obvious from the photos with her sons that Hepburn loved being a mother and adored her children. When her own were grown, she turned to the world's less fortunate children, serving as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. Says her son: "There is no doubt in my mind that, were she given one more day among us, after spending the first few seconds hugging us, she would again talk about those children."

Don't expect a thorough trip through the actress's life. This isn't the place for that -- not discussed, for example, are her two divorces. If you want a solid and detailed story of Hepburn's life, there are plenty of books about it. If you want a photo-filled personal reminiscence, this is for you.

For the Python fan
"The Pythons Autobiography" by the Pythons (Thomas Dunne Books, $60) is enormous and expensive, but if someone on your gift list tends to break into song whenever Spam or sperm are mentioned, your shopping stops here. Think of the book as a DVD of the Pythons career, complete with deleted scenes, inside jokes, and director commentary. One fascinating section explains how the name "Monty Python's Flying Circus" was developed. Would fans have been so devoted if one of the rejected names had won out and they ended up watching "Megapode's Atomic Circus" or "Bob Python's Flying Circus"?

Thomas Dunne Books

The book is designed almost like a troupe scrapbook, with enormous pages stuffed full of photos and copies of memos, documents and articles. (Uncaptioned, but Python devotees can probably figure out who's who.)

Fans will cherish the absorbing personal details about the sketches and movies that are such a part of pop-culture history. (In "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," a one-legged understudy filled in for John Cleese when the Black Knight famously loses his first limb.)

But serious issues are also discussed, including the late Graham Chapman's trouble with alcohol. Says John Cleese: "I knew that when you wrote with [Chapman] in the afternoon, he wouldn't remember what we'd written in the morning." There's also a deeply moving chapter in which the surviving actors discuss Chapman's 1989 death.

For true Python maniacs, this is indeed the Holy Grail.

For the designer
The headline here is misleading -- it's not just designers who'll love "All American Ads of the '30s" (edited by Jim Heimann, Taschen, $39.99). Anyone with an eye for vintage graphics and American history will appreciate this telephone-book-thick tome and the other volumes ('40s, '50s, '60s) in the series.

Taschen

Some of the products are forever gone -- Chipso laundry soap, the 1938 Hupmobile, Baby Ruth lime drops. Some ads would never see publication today -- an ad for Monsanto features a black family beaming while they pick cotton. Some just make readers look back to an era that seems irretrievably ancient -- 50 cent bow ties, the Dionne quintuplets as spokesmodels, 10 cent hairnets, corsets.

The book is expensive, but it's also almost 800 pages, and none are wasted. Many ads are full page, and most are full-color. Don't expect a lot of context -- other than a multi-lingual introduction, it's all ads, glorious ads. If someone on your gift list appreciates vintage design, the products of the past, and a bit of colorful history, this book -- or other eras in the series -- will be a nostalgic treat.

For the Beatlemaniac
There are only two people left who know what it was like to be a member of the Beatles in the band's heyday -- Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. But photographer Harry Benson has a clue. His new book, "Once There Was a Way: Photographs of the Beatles,"  (Abrams, $29.95) captures a band teetering on the edge, just about to put their normal lives behind them forever and live as legends.

Harry N. Abrams

When Benson was assigned to follow the group, he resisted. A seasoned photojournalist, he thought the assignment beneath him. He changed his mind once he met the band and became their friend. Only a friend could get the shots Benson did -- including his most famous photos, which catch the band having a pillow fight in their hotel room in January 1964, a moment of youthful joy forever frozen on the cusp of international and eternal fame.

The Beatles' faces are so familiar, yet the view of them Benson captured feels fresh. They are so young -- cheeks unblemished, eyes bright, open to the world. Paul and Ringo examine an outdoor rack of French postcards. John mimics a bust of Napoleon. Other famous faces show up, too. Ed Sullivan jokes around in a Beatles wig before their first performance on his show. Muhammed Ali pretends to punch out all four Beatles.

There are almost as many Beatles books as there are Beatles fans. Benson's book has a narrow focus -- all the photographs were taken between 1964 and 1966. But for those curious about the Fab Four's very first tenuous steps onto that long and winding road, Benson was there at the beginning.

For the 007 fan
Ursula Andress, her weapons a devastating white bikini and a sheathed knife at her side, emerging from the sea. Shirley Eaton, gilded from head to toe in a fatal shower of gold. Halle Berry, whether in camouflage clothing or a bikini, the most modern and perhaps the most feminist of them all. They're known as Bond girls, but they're women, each one of them, a contradiction reflected in the title of "Bond Girls Are Forever: The Women of James Bond" by Maryam d'Abo and John Cork (Abrams, $40).

Harry N. Abrams

Maryam d'Abo played Russian cellist Kara Milovy in 1987's "The Living Daylights." (Roger Ebert called her "the least interesting love interest in any Bond film.") Yet her long-ago role continues to fascinate her. D'Abo produced a 2002 documentary, also called "Bond Girls Are Forever," before collaborating on this book.

With this topic, the book could easily have turned out to be just a shade this side of "Playboy: The Girls of James Bond" issue. But don't expect page after page of centerfold-type shots -- although the photos are enormous, the cheesecake is few and far between. This book is as much for reading as for admiring -- it's heavy on text, delving into the psyche of each character and how the role of women in Bond films has changed over the years. Since the next Bond flick isn't due out until holiday season 2005, fans will have plenty of time to read up.

For the alt-music lover
Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder introduces Charles Peterson's "Touch Me I'm Sick" (powerHouse, $40) by saying "I love Charles Peterson. I hate getting my picture taken." He's expressing the sentiments of many Seattle rockers. Peterson did for them what Glen E. Friedman did for Dogtown's skateboarders -- captured their scene on film while at the same time staying out of their way.

Powerhouse Books

Peterson himself says in the book "I never purport having set out to photograph the history of this thing. ... I didn't need to. I was there. I lived it." That explains how he managed to get such candid shots, including the famous photo of Kurt Cobain falling into a drum set. (That well-known photo, it turns out, is one of a sequence.) The focus is less on famous faces than on the sweaty energy of the beer-stained, crumbling clubs that gave the music a home.

Don't expect Peterson's book to be your guide to the music scene of the early '90s. There are no captions or cohesive essay, just snippets from fanzines and magazines of the era. But then, the words were never the point.

MORE FROM BOOKS

Poet Lord Byron’s letters sell for $455,000

Poet Lord Byron’s letters sell for $455,000 Seriously! Beer sparked Norm’s ‘Cheers’ career Tycoon tales and Darwin get award nominations ‘Wild Things’ author isn’t wild about Hollywood Herta Mueller wins Nobel literature prize Hilary Mantel wins Booker prize for fiction Pooh, Christopher Robin reunite in new book Sarah Palin’s ‘Going Rogue’ book cover unveiled   Add Books headlines to your news reader: