THE HARROWSMITH READER, VOLUME III. Camden East (Ont.), Camden House Publishing, c1984. 317pp, cloth, $16.95, ISBN 0-920656-32-3. Distributed by Firefly. CIP Grades 9 and up Reviewed by Dianne Clipsham Volume 13 Number 2 1985 March This third reader, in its eighth year of publication, attests to the amazing longevity of Harrowsmith, at a time when general mass market periodicals are struggling or giving up publishing altogether. According to its publisher's surveys, the man or woman who reads the magazine spends 8.4 hours per week in a garden during growing season, is serious about home improvement and energy conservation, and 67 per cent heat with wood! As anyone familiar with Harrowsmith knows, it contains a variety of articles on living the simpler life. This volume compiles what its editor considers to be the most "useful and lasting information published. . .during the past three years." The subjects range from architecture (old log homes) to old lamps to raising turkeys to "zero-degree harvests," that is, how to home-freeze your garden produce without loss of nutrient value. The book is not for the "quick and dirty" types, who want to get a job done fast, but for the dedicated few for whom nothing is too much trouble: who make soup stock from scratch, or who build log houses by first dismantling an existing old house and then moving it piece by piece at least 40 miles. There is an implied virtue in all of this; that the old ways were good ways, and that the pride of being self-sufficient makes it all worthwhile. Physically, it is well bound in the familiar 8 inch x 11 inch trade paper format, with good margins and easily read type-face, and it comes complete with an index and a list of sources at the end of most articles. Of particular appeal to the eastern Canadian and north-eastern American reader, the Harrowsinith Reader III brings out the "country" in everyone, whether armchair urbanite dreamer or the born and raised rural. Recommended for collections serving either type of clientele. Dianne Clipsham, Nepean, Ont.