Headlines to Hardback : Politics. Crime. Racism. The books causing the buzz this season are releases that echo the events of the daily news--often in the pages of fiction.

As the president of the United States begins a tough reelection campaign, he’s beset by rumors of philandering. Meanwhile, his outspoken wife has growing political problems--and tangled financial secrets--of her own.

When the primary season heats up, rival candidates sling mud and the Secret Service has its hands full protecting all of them from assassins’ bullets. The nation’s ugly mood is further inflamed by outbreaks of domestic terrorism in the heartland, not to mention the pyrotechnics of radio talk show hosts.

Sound familiar? All these news items were culled from the front pages . . . of forthcoming novels.

In a world saturated with media information, book publishing has become just one more mirror in which we see ourselves, and the days when writers tried to distance themselves from headlines are long gone. This year, the big books of winter and spring will echo the drumbeat of daily news more than ever, many of them blurring the line between fact and fiction.

The topics range from politics and criminal justice to glimpses of African American life, white suburban malaise and Hollywood flimflam. Writers are chronicling the lives of single fathers and the struggles of women with breast cancer in novels as well as memoirs, and you’re just as likely to pick up a techno-thriller about the Persian Gulf War as a history of Patriot missiles.

In one sense, 1996 should be like any other year in the book biz: Brand-name authors are likely to dominate the bestseller lists, with new titles from John Grisham, Danielle Steel and Mary Higgins Clark. Nonfiction books by Bob Woodward and former President George Bush will also vie for top billing, along with works by Louise Erdrich, Sam Shepard, Cynthia Ozick, Mary Gordon, Calvin Trillin, Nicholson Baker, Ivan Doig, John Kenneth Galbraith and Ian Frazier.

Yet a random sampling of catalogs shows a new trend of current events dominating books. Today, novelists and pundits tackle similar themes--and who’s to say whether an attack on racism by a black essayist is any more or less revealing than the fictional tale of a pregnant teenager from Harlem?

“Fiction and nonfiction switch roles quite a bit in the book world,” says Ivan Held, publicity director for Random House. “Sometimes they merge.”

A good example is “Primary Colors” (Random House), an anonymously penned novel that is one of the more eagerly awaited political thrillers of 1996. Blessed with strong early reviews, it’s the fictional account of a U.S. president, very much like Bill Clinton, with a wife very much like Hillary Rodham Clinton, facing a series of obstacles very much like Clinton faced in 1992.

Yet how fictional is the book, asks Publishers Weekly, given rampant speculation that the author is “someone highly placed in Washington, possibly even within the Clinton administration?” How fanciful is the story, the weekly adds, given the writer’s “intimate knowledge” of Washington culture?

Readers may pose similar questions about “The Anniversary” by Rachel Canon (Random House), a bracing what-if tale about the assassination of the first woman president. “Exclusive” by Sandra Brown (Warner Books) portrays a young first couple’s private lives with scorching detail and telling nuance.

“Absolute Power” by David Baldacci (Warner Books) conjures what would happen if the president of the United States brutalized a woman during rough sex and then tried to cover up the crime. In “Days of Drums” by Philip Shelby (Simon & Schuster), a U.S. senator is murdered and a president who just happens to be from Arkansas may be next on the hit list. “The Campaign” by Marilyn Quayle and Nancy Tucker Northcott (HarperCollins) tells of a charismatic black conservative senator from Georgia who is set up to take the rap in a murder case by . . . who else? . . . the president of the United States.

If all this seems confusing, there are plenty of nonfiction books about politics heading your way this spring. Presidential campaigns always trigger an avalanche of fact-based titles, and this year should be no different.

“Madhouse” by Jeffrey Birnbaum (Times Books) chronicles the initial idealism and subsequent burnout of six Clinton aides in Washington, D.C. Historian Douglas Brinkley weighs in with “Jimmy Carter” (Random House) a painstakingly researched analysis of the former president.

In “The System” (Little, Brown & Co.), veteran correspondents Haynes Johnson and David Broder detail the breakdown of the U.S. political process; Harold Myerson, a Los Angeles author, chronicles the erosion of unions and working-class political solidarity in “The Disorganization of America” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).

Two titles top the list of 1996 political books: In “American Foreign Policy” (Knopf), Bush and former national security chief Brent Scowcroft discuss the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War, the end of the Cold War and other upheavals during their Washington years. Back on the home front, ace reporter Woodward delivers “The Race” (Simon & Schuster), an inside account of the 1996 campaign before the election actually takes place.

Also due out is a scorching treatise from Robert Bork, “Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline” (HarperCollins) and an expose by James B. Stewart, “Blood Sport: The Truth Behind the Scandals in the Clinton White House” (Simon & Schuster). Meanwhile, Times Books will publish “Dirty Little Secrets: The Resurgence of Corruption in American Politics” by Larry Sabato and Glenn Simpson, and Bantam is touting “The Republican War Against Women: An Insider’s Report from Behind the Lines” by Tanya Melich, co-founder of the Republican Women movement.

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Just as publishers follow the front pages for clues about political books, they also try to gauge the public mood on issues like racism. This spring, there seem to be more books by, for and about African Americans than ever.

“Push” by Sapphire (Knopf) is told by a black street girl pregnant with her father’s child: “I was left back when I was 12 because I had a baby for my fahver. . . . This gonna be my second baby. My daughter got down sinder. She’s retarded. . . . I should be in 11th grade but I’m not. I’m in the ninfe grade. . . . The tesses [teachers] paint a picture of me wif no brain. The tesses paint a picture of me an’ my muver, we more than dumb, we invisible.”

On a brighter note, Easy Rawlins fans will be cheered by Walter Mosely’s latest mystery, “A Little Yellow Dog” (Norton), and Connie Briscoe follows her well-received “Sisters and Lovers” with “Big Girls Don’t Cry” (HarperCollins). Meanwhile, local author Paul Beatty pens “The White Boy Shuffle” (Houghton Mifflin), a satire of black coming of age in Los Angeles.

Billed as “a gay Terry McMillan,” E. Lynn Harris delivers “And This Too Shall Pass” (Doubleday), the story of a black NFL quarterback in Chicago caught up in a sexual harassment lawsuit. “Caught Up in the Rapture” by Sherman Oaks writer Sheneska Jackson (Simon & Schuster) takes place in South-Central Los Angeles and features a character named Jazmine; she’s headed for a recording career until she clashes with a power-mad record executive.

Nonfiction black writers are also well-represented this spring: “Street Soldier” by Joseph Marshall Jr. and Lonnie Wheeler (Dell) tells the story of the Omega Boys Club, a San Francisco organization that has reached out to thousands of inner-city kids and turned them away from a gang lifestyle. “Mama’s Girl” by Veronica Chambers (Putnam) is a mother-daughter memoir of black life in Brooklyn during the 1970s; “Stealing Home” by Sharon Robinson (HarperCollins) is an intimate family memoir by Jackie Robinson’s daughter.

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For other tastes, there are fiction and nonfiction books galore on the breakdown of the criminal justice system--”The D.A.” by Lawrence Taylor (William Morrow) is a behind-the-scenes story of a Los Angeles assistant district attorney--as well as books on women’s issues, environmentalism, religion, the Internet, gay sexuality, Russian affairs and millennium angst.

The Hollywood snake pit is a category unto itself, with two biting novels due out: “I’m Losing You” (Villard) by Los Angeles author Bruce Wagner, and “A Place to Fall” by Santa Monica writer Roger Director (Villard). A title sure to spark controversy is “Hit and Run” by Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters (Simon & Schuster), an inside account of Jon Peters and Peter Guber’s tumultuous reign at Columbia Pictures--what one studio chairman has called “the most public [screwing] in the history of the movie business.”

It’s too early to tell which of these books--if any--will become the runaway hits of 1996. None of the major works on O.J. Simpson has appeared yet, and the publishing world is always on the prowl for sleeper titles like “The Celestine Prophecy” that come out of nowhere and dominate sales.

When it comes to the best title, however, several books are clearly out front. “We’re Right, They’re Not” by presidential guru James Carville (Random House) is a Democratic call to arms. “I Am Not a Corpse” by Mark Katz (Dell) compiles funny quotes that were never actually said. “101 Ways to Get Your Adult Children to Move Out” by Rich Melheim (Doubleday) hits the bull’s-eye, and Al Franken’s “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot” (Dell) speaks for itself.

But the clear winner is Sandra Tsing Loh, whose darkly satirical view of Los Angeles life will be published by Putnam’s Riverhead Books. Described as the city’s answer to Fran Liebowitz, it is titled “Depth Takes a Holiday.”