WITHOUT A FARMHOUSE NEAR <i> by Deborah Rawson (Ballantine: $5.95) </i>

Deborah Rawson’s highly readable account of the transformation of two small Vermont farming communities into suburbs has the informal tone of a New Yorker “Talk of the Town” piece. The beauty of the farmland made the region attractive to large numbers of people--whose presence raised land prices and property taxes until the farms ceased to be economically viable. Rawson’s reflections on the problems of preserving the qualities that make an area a desirable place to live as increasing numbers of people move there have a relevance that extends beyond New England, as anyone who’s driven between San Francisco and San Diego in recent years can attest.