DEAREST BUBUSHKIN--SELECTED LETTERS AND DIARIES OF VERA AND IGOR STRAVINSKY (Thames & Hudson: $29.95).

In this handsome coffee-table collection, with family photos aplenty, Igor Stravinsky sidekick Robert Craft serves as loving editor of what turns out to be a portrait of the composer’s dedicated wife Vera. Anyone curious about her more illustrious husband will be disappointed: Only a dozen brief letters bear his signature. Even the most trivial correspondence is included (“Letter received--All is well--Vera”). Vera’s running diary lists the Stravinskys’ famous dining and partying companions. Not a volume for the ages, though some historians might be intrigued.