THE BEST OF PHOTOJOURNALISM: The Year in Pictures, <i> presented by The National Press Photographers Assn</i> .<i> and the University of Missouri School of Journalism (Running Press: $19.95).</i>

This visual record of the year that was offers the usual arresting shots of competing athletes, cities dramatically reflected in water, cute little kids and the sorts of incongruous images Life used to run under “Miscellany,” including a police officer showing a little old lady how to aim a handgun and a group of high school swimmers shaving for a meet. But there’s an unpleasantly voyeuristic tone to many of these pictures, however striking they may be. A photo essay by Donna Ferrato shows a married couple arguing and striking each other over the husband’s drug habit; Eugene Richards’ study of the North Philadelphia drug scene includes “a 16-year-old addict turning a trick with her child in tow.” Feeling a bit like a peeping Tom, the reader wonders just how the photographers got these shots--and why the subjects allowed themselves to be depicted this way.