To Di For

How do you like your Diana, Princess of Wales? Beautiful, bulimic, suicidally miserable in a loveless marriage to a loutish prince? Try Diana: Her True Story by Andrew Morton, No. 1 on Publishers Weekly's June 29 best-seller list. Prefer an archly catty view of the princess as beautiful, strong-willed, exasperating in a loveless marriage to a reasonable guy? Go with Diana in Private: The Princess Nobody Knowsby Lady Colin Campbell, now No. 5 on the same list. Then again, you may want to cut right to the suds about the royal couple's Close Personal Friends — allegedly Camilla Parker-Bowles for him, supposedly Maj. James Hewitt for her — in which case Nicholas Davies' just-published Diana: A Princess and Her Troubled Marriage is your cup of tea.

Point is, there are three hot new books on the market about Diana. And as far as millions of American readers who have never once curtsied to nobody are concerned, there's room for three more. Six more. Pile them on! Bring on the videos and magazines and the coffee-table photo collections of the world's most photographed woman! Right now there's a four-hour NBC made-for-TV mini- series in the works for next May based on the Morton book. Right now there are photos of the Princess — looking thin, looking sad, looking radiant, looking maternal — in magazines and newspapers all across the country. Why stop? Diana is a modern woman with an ancient title, trapped in an unpleasant marriage with historic repercussions. The modern part feels all-American (she could be a shopaholic friend); the traditional part is exotically British (she may yet become a queen). What's the true story? Your choice: Here's how Morton, Campbell, and Davies each tells it. (Bet you'll look at the pictures first.)

Growing Up Di
She was born Diana Frances Spencer on July 1, 1961, the third girl of a family longing for a boy. (Eventually, a son, Charles, was born.) Her parents split up when she was six. Scholarship was not her strong suit. ''A voice inside her told her that she would be separate from the herd,'' says Morton. Sniffs Campbell, ''It quickly became apparent, however, that the Hon. Diana Spencer, though quick on the uptake, would never shine academically.'' She won the Pets Corner Cup at school for ''her loving care of her pet hamster,'' reports Davies.