Pick of the paperbacks; Unsetting Europe, by Jane Kramer.New York: Vintage Books/Random House. $4.95.

Jane Kramer has joined the thin ranks of authors who can take important political subjects and make them as readable as a good novel. Here is an outstanding look at a sizable chunk of Europe's population -- people who are't social democrats, Euro-communists, products of the economic miracle, or any other European stereotype.

Through profiles of four families she came to know during her years corresponding for the New Yorker, the author shows us what it's like to be an Italian communist; why Yugoslavs spend years living and working in Sweden; the plight of Asians who live in overcrowded London because Amin kicked them out of Uganda; and why French families who fled to Algeria, but returned to France when Algeria became independent, couldn't mix with their own countrymen. In their own -- and often humorous -- words, these families tell us how "the other half" survives in Europe's political climate.