One example of the latter is The Prologue, the Poltergeist & the Hollow Tree: Recalling the Tightrope Walker from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Foundation 20 21, $35), a new book by Jimmy Raskin that accompanied a recent exhibition of his works at the Foundation 20 21 gallery in the National Arts Club on Gramercy Park. A Cal Arts graduate who lives and works in New York, Raskin has an intense fixation on the 19th-century philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. For the exhibition, he filled the gallery’s duplex, townhouse-style space with colorful mixed-media sculptures and works on paper, many of which have an expressionistic or arts-and-crafts texture.

Raskin’s elegantly designed, 160-page hardcover book, the result of almost 10 years of effort, is a poet’s close reading of Nietzsche’s 1891 parable (the philosopher’s only fictional work), complete with colorful, analytic diagrams that map out the narrative as well as its allegorical and theoretical aspects. In one of his elaborations, Raskin confounds Nietzsche’s "tightrope walker," who represent a metaphorical human on the road to enlightenment (who fails, and is abandoned), with Pinocchio, the Italian folk puppet who picks himself up and, as a "restless spirit," embarks on a series of misadventures.

As Raskin explains, the prologue to Thus Spake Zarathustra ends with the tightrope walker abandoned in a hollow tree, while Pinocchio begins with a spirit that inhabits a piece of wood. "Death and rebirth both take place in a tree." This is only the beginning of Raskin’s adventurous exegesis. Exceedingly original as well as obsessive and ornate, the book is a visual and written diorama of brilliant notions.

Another good example of small-scale gallery publication is Nobuya Hoki: drawings (Daiwa Radio Factory, $40), a monograph published in conjunction with the Japanese artist’s current exhibition at I-20 in Chelsea, his first exhibition in the U.S. Despite the sampling of three Japanese clichs -- japanimation, Zen-like poeticism and textile patterns -- Hoki’s works manage to emerge in a place that is entirely unique. His deft line drawings, done on monochrome grounds on canvas or paper, have a nave simplicity of style and form, and emanate a sense of quiet wisdom.

Beautifully bound and printed on soft delicate paper, the book has a vibrant blue hard cover that is decorated with silver line drawings -- a work of art on its own. Acting as a retrospective of the 39-year-old artist’s work, the book includes over 100 color plates and a short essay in both English and Japanese by art critic Minoru Shimizu.

Harlemville is a hidden utopian world. Richardson’s photos range from bucolic landscapes (sometimes accentuated by children running amok) to single portraits of children -- they look fairly normal, in the way that Damien looked normal -- to weirdly ritualistic images of boys playing in the mud. These could be the visual counterparts to scenes described in Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World or in some more chilling images William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies. Richardson’s uncanny ability to capture their world so intimately is what gives the images their weight.

In one of the first pictures, for instance, the book’s title phrase is written on a slat-board fence. In other photos, "Now" and "My Death, Money" are written right on the white pillows and sheets of a bed. Walls, fences, rocks, chalkboards, and beds take turns acting as Dine’s bard. Each page-break sets the pace of the poem to a Beat-like rhythm. The final page contains the words, "To Steidl himself for this Freedom --J.D."

The New York-based Independent Curators International puts together its own exhibitions, and publishes the accompanying catalogues. 100 Artists See God (ICI, $35) is the catalogue for the ICI show organized by John Baldessari and Meg Cranston (next on view at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia in Virginia Beach, June 9-Sept. 4, 2005, its third and final stop). A direct response to 9/11, planning for 100 Artists See God began six months after the demise of the World Trade Center, when G-d was appearing everywhere in the press.

The publication opens with a dutiful essay by Thomas McEvilley titled "Ways of Seeing God," which briefly traces the manifestation of the spiritual in art through the centuries, focusing primarily on the 20th Century. Other artists in the show include Chris Burden, Nicole Eisenman, Katharina Fritsch, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Albert Oehlen, Tony Oursler, Jorge Pardo, Nicolette Pot, Gerhard Richter, Nancy Rubins, Ed Ruscha, Marnie Weber and Franz West.

The photographic portraits of the artists are intimate and up-close, many of them documenting the artists at work. Among the artists covered are Magdalena Abakanowicz, Vito Acconci, Ross Bleckner, Louis Bourgeois, Chuck Close, John Currin, Jim Dine, Carroll Dunham, Leon Golub, Jenny Holzer, Donald Judd, Anish Kapoor, Allan McCollum, Susan Rothenberg, Kiki Smith, Richard Tuttle, and Terry Winters.

The 208-page paperback book includes works by over 50 artists, along with pithy descriptions by the authors, as well as poems and quotes, an unfortunately academic historical overview and a transcribed conversation between the authors and several artists. Among the international roster of artists in this bound exhibition are Joseph Beuys, Jeremy Deller, Andreas Gursky, Jens Hoffman, Sarah Morris, Fabian Marcaccio, Cildo Meireles, Takashi Murakami, Philippe Parreno, Danica Phelps and Rob Pruitt.

Taylor ends his authoritative account, updating us to the present, by addressing the question of why the ideas behind collage seem so much in harmony with the digital age. The book offers readers a chance to view the reproductions of many works rarely seen and even more seldom seen all together.

is a 328-page tome with more than 20 essays on early games, ranging from "Dice in India and Beyond" by Irving Finkel, one of the show’s co-curators, to "Polo: The Emperor of Games" by Virginia Bower and Colin Mackenzie, who is the other co-curator. New Yorkers who haven’t seen the actual exhibition should make haste; it closes Jan. 16, 2005.

The exhibition title, for instance, refers to Charles Dicken’s novel Great Expectaions, an example from a long list of works centered on children in the 1800s. Sprinkled throughout the book’s 230 pages are stunning reproductions of Sargent’s work, including several that are not on view in the show. This exhibition also closes on Jan. 16, 2005.