THE CRAZY YEARS: Paris in the Twenties <i> by William Wiser (Thames & Hudson: $12.95, illustrated) </i>

A moveable feast of leftovers. William Wiser loves a good story, especially one that involves bisexuality, lesbianism or some other scandal, and he’s collected quite a lot of them about the “lost generation.” The names are familiar: Hemingway, Stein, Chanel, Joyce, Beach. Unfortunately, most of the anecdotes are equally familiar: Virtually all these tales of alcoholism and artistic squabbles have been printed before. Wiser’s book is eminently readable, but he never gets beyond the superficial. He doesn’t seem to grasp the difference between Elsa Maxwell’s flashy stunts and the theatrical spectacles of Jean Cocteau, whom he portrays as a social gadfly, rather than an important artist. The most notable feature of “Crazy Years” is its collection of archival photographs, including a poignant shot of a hopelessly mad Nijinsky visiting the 1927 revival of “Petrouchka.”