TRACEY TAKES ON

TRACEY TAKES ON Tracey Ullman (Hyperion, $24.95) You might expect that Ullman's impish impersonations -- whether of hairy New York cabbie Chic Magnet or scary Beverly Hills attorney Sydney Kross -- would lose something in a literary translation. Yet this companion to the hit HBO series Tracey Takes On, in which 16 Ullman characters ''take on'' subjects from childhood to sex to money, cleverly replaces the comedian's voice with visual stimuli. Alongside hilarious photos of Ullman's mercurial mugs, the characters' missives come in forms ranging from screenplays to diaries to homemaker Fern Rosenthal's Mondo Condo newsletter. And how better to capture a comic chameleon on the page than with a leotard-clad paper-doll Tracey -- and cutout accoutrements for all her creations? B+

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