THE BOOK OF KISSES by William Cane...

THE BOOK OF KISSES by William Cane (St. Martin’s Press: $6.95; 357 pp.). Although Ambrose Bierce dismissed the act as “a word invented by the poets as a rhyme for ‘bliss,’ ” this pleasantly silly collection of quotes demonstrates that a kiss is, well, still a kiss. The sources of the funny, mushy, ironic and romantic statements range from Ovid to Barbara Bush (“I married the first boy I ever kissed”). The dilatory lover who wants to wax eloquent tonight could pick up a copy--or just fall back on Noel Coward’s classic line, “Come and kiss me, darling, before your body rots and worms pop in and out of your eye sockets.”