1988Year LEAD: LEGENDS, LIES, AND CHERISHED MYTHS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. By Richard Shenkman. (Morrow, $15.95.) Any list of trivia yields up some general truths, and the insightful reader will glean much from ''Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History.'' Richard Shenkman, a co-author of ''One Night Stands With American History,'' has cobbled together 17 brief chapters to set us straight on such topics as discoverers and inventors, the good old days, education, art and other subjects both serious and light. IN SHORT

1988Year LEAD: ALL THE WRONG PLACES: Adrift in the Politics of the Pacific Rim. By James Fenton. (Atlantic Monthly, Paper, $7.95.) James Fenton is part journalist, part Indiana Jones. He has been reporting from the front lines of the major upheavals in the Pacific Rim over the past 15 years, and in ''All the Wrong Places'' he has brilliantly captured the pathos, humor, tragedy, hope and desperation he wit-nessed. IN SHORT

1988Year LEAD: IT'S ALL IN THE PLAYING. By Shirley MacLaine. Bantam, $18.95.) This fifth installment of Shirley MacLaine's memoirs and forays into the metaphysical world recounts the filming for television of her previous book on reincarnation, ''Out on a Limb.'' Before going in front of the cameras, Ms. MacLaine voiced concern that television critics might be inclined to pan the production because they hadn't had ''otherworldly'' experiences themselves. IN SHORT

1988Year LEAD: MAKERS OF THE NEW: The Revolution in Literature, 1912-1939. By Julian Symons. (Random House, $19.95.) This lively history traces the development of British and American literary modernism in the years between the founding of Poetry magazine in Chicago in 1912 and the publication of ''Finnegans Wake'' in 1939. IN SHORT

1988Year LEAD: MYRNA LOY: Being and Becoming. By James Kotsilibas-Davis and Myrna Loy. (Knopf, $22.95.) With 124 feature films spanning a 60-year career, Myrna Loy should be a wellspring of stories about the golden age of Hollywood, the studio system where she was one of its foremost players, and the political arena she embraced when her acting career slowed. IN SHORT

1988Year LEAD: HUMOR AND THE PRESIDENCY. By Gerald R. Ford. (Arbor House, $15.95.) At the opening of the Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1981, President Ford found himself reminiscing with a bunch of old political cronies about the good times they had had when Mr. Ford was in the White House. IN SHORT