BRIEF LIVES <i> by Anita Brookner (Vintage: $11).</i>

Brookner’s thoughtful, unpretentious novel depicts the lonely dilemma of a woman young enough to be active in postwar Britain, but too old to adapt comfortably to the changes society has undergone. Although she confesses that she is not a “nice woman,” Fay, the narrator, remains an eminently decent person. “Old women have more courage than young ones,” she reflects. “They have no choice but to be brave.” Calm and undemanding, she differs from her theatrical, vain friend Julia, who reduces everyone around her to the status of hanger-on. The two women establish a curious, yet mutually supportive bond that outlasts other friendships and even marriages. Fay longs for comfortable, bourgeois normalcy, but finds herself unable to attain it; instead, she receives the more difficult (and ultimately more satisfying) prize of self-knowledge.