LIVING THE GOOD LIFE: HOW TO LIVE SANELY AND SIMPLY IN A TROUBLED WORLD by Helen and Scoff Nearing. 213 pages. Schocken. $4.95.
All over the country on hundreds of little subsistence farms and rural communes, young Americans are scavenging for a simpler way of life. Their move back to the land is a heartening quest, honored both by a long pioneering tradition and the envy of countless city dwellers surfeited with subways and smog. But putting Swiss Family Robinson into practice often proves tougher than the new Utopians count on.
Fortunately, among their guides...