NOW IN PAPERBACK

PIGS IN HEAVEN, by Barbara Kingslover (HarperPerennial, 343 pp., $13). A six-year-old Cherokee girl named Turtle and her adoptive white mother Taylor Greer are back in the sequel to Barbara Kingslover's first novel, ``The Bean Trees.'' When the legality of Turtle's adoption is questioned by the Cherokee Nation, the Greers flee their Arizona home in search of answers. In her review of Aug. 9, 1993, Elizabeth Levitan Spaid wrote that Kingslover ``sensitively tackles complicated issues of heritage and ethnic divisions in society.''

YOU NEVER KNOW, by Isabel Huggan (Penguin, 241 pp., $9.95). Twelve stories are included in this second collection by Canadian author Isabel Huggan. ``[R]eading her work is an extraordinarily satisfying experience,'' Merle Rubin wrote in her review of July 9, 1993. Set in international locales, these stories include characters who are sorting out relationships and life, and who Rubin finds are portrayed with ``insight, empathy, and humor.''

GAI-JIN: A NOVEL OF JAPAN, by James Clavell (Dell, 1,236 pp., $6.99). Saga-master James Clavell's latest book is part of his Asian series that began with ``Shogun.'' Covering several months in 1862-1863, this historical novel is named for the foreigners, gai-jin, who have recently begun to trade with the island nation. An attack by two samurai on several Westerners begins the tale, and compelling ``plots within plots within plots'' keep readers engrossed, wrote Ron Scherer in his May 12, 1993 review.

RACE MATTERS, by Cornel West (Vintage, 159 pp., $9). Issues blacks may face in the 21st century are examined in Cornel West's well-received book. West, a professor of religion and Afro-American studies, provides a volume that ``interprets a range of black views on race relations - from the conservative ideas of Harvard University Prof. Martin Kilson to the question of black rage raised by Malcom X,'' Luix Overbea wrote in his review of May 10, 1993.

LENIN'S TOMB: THE LAST DAYS OF THE SOVIET EMPIRE, by David Remnick (Vintage, 588 pp., $14). Between 1988 and 1991, Washington Post correspondent David Remnick observed the disintegration of the Soviet Union. He recounts these events ``with enormous ease, and the humor and honesty of a modern de Tocqueville,'' Nicholas Daniloff wrote in his review of July 29, 1993. ``Remnick documents the moral and physical corruption of the Soviet Union as he meanders through the dangerous pits of the Kuzbass coal mines and the sleazy bars and potholed back streets of Russian cities.''

DIFFERENT MIRROR: A HISTORY OF MULTICULTURAL AMERICA, by Ronald Takaki (Back Bay Books/Little, Brown, 508 pp., $12.95). Ronald Takaki's treatment of United States history is ``an excellent place to start in understanding how this uniquely diverse country came to be and where it is headed,'' Brad Knickerbocker wrote in his review of Aug. 10, 1993. Takaki's book is not a ``revisionist'' history of the US, but a book that ``both distinguishes and weaves together the origins of those Americans often still identified by race or ethnicity...,'' Knickerbocker wrote.

CLABBERED DIRT, SWEET GRASS, by Gary Paulsen, paintings by Ruth Wright Paulsen (Harvest Books/Harcourt Brace, 120 pp., $9.95). The highs and lows of farming are captured by Gary Paulsen in his short tribute to rural life in the United States. The book, which is sectioned according to the seasons, is illustrated with nine oil paintings by the author's wife. Leslie Popiel, in a Sept. 30, 1992 review, called Paulsen's prose ``realistic and down-to-earth, completely involving the reader with the smell, taste, and feel of the American farm.''