GIFT BOOKS IN BRIEF : PAR AVION <i> by Jean-Jacques Sempe, translated by Helen Graves (Alfred A. Knopf: $21).</i>

Readers who prefer a gentler style of humor than Addams’ will enjoy Sempe. The series of letters and fragile line drawings in “Par Avion” chronicles the misadventures of a befuddled and rather innocent Frenchman in the chicly yup-scale circles of Manhattan, where everyone, “from the humblest to the most powerful, wants to do something ‘great,’ something ‘creative.’ ”