NONFICTION - Nov. 10, 1996

LATE BLOOMERS by Brendan Gill (Artisan Press: $14.95, 167 pp.). Col. Sanders, Coco Chanel, Jonathan Swift and Pope John XXIII, all share the experience of having come into their own (in a rather showy way) late in life. But Brendan Gill is coy on the subject of how late is late. Ages are rarely mentioned in these brief portraits (photographs accompanied by a page of biography). “To find oneself is plainly to have been lost,” writes Gill in the foreword. It’s a cunning little volume, meant to inspire, for someone who needs a mid-life lift.