I Want it Now! A Memoir of Life on the Set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Julie Dawn Cole, with Michael Essinger

Description (from Amazon.com): In 1970, Julie Dawn Cole was cast as the unforgettable Veruca Salt in the classic motion picture Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder. Since its release in 1971, this epic musical has endured as a favorite of children from around the world with a fan base that encompasses generations of movie goers. With its unforgettable characters, chocolaty landscapes and everlasting music, this charming fairy-tale mixes these ingredients into what has been become a cinematic classic from literary legend Roald Dahl. Praised by critics worldwide and often featured in broadcasts with other masterpiece musicals, it remains a timeless treasure. Acclaimed film critic Robert Ebert wrote: “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is probably the best film of its sort since The Wizard of Oz. It is everything that family movies usually claim to be, but aren’t: Delightful, funny, scary, exciting, and, most of all, a genuine work of imagination.” Julie Dawn Cole has written an enchanting and richly illustrated memoir that offers a rare look behind the stage curtain to this ageless film. Splendidly illustrated with personal letters, never-seen-before photographs and documents; her mesmerizing story chronicles the entire production experience and tells of the remarkable journey of how she became known worldwide as a really bad egg. Filled with countless funny and touching memories, her story takes readers behind-the-scenes of Willy Wonka and the resulting coming of age journey that brought the cast together again after nearly a quarter century. I Want it Now takes readers beyond the world of pure imagination and behind the scenes to this universally cherished motion picture. A true-to-life Charlie Bucket tale, Julie’s story is unforgettable…

Review: I was born in the same year that Willy Wonky and the Chocolate Factory was being filmed, so I’ve never known life without Gene Wilder and the cast of kids singing and dancing their way through the chocolate factory. Like many little girls, demanding, impetuous Veruca Salt was my favorite character. She may have wanted it now, but I wanted to be her.

When Julie Dawn Cole’s memoir of life on the set showed up as a Kindle book for under $3, I had to have it. I mean, I enjoy memoirs in general, but this book spoke to the child in me as well as the adult. I enjoyed her memories of the set, the filming, the other kids. Her real life wasn’t so great when she was young, and while none of the kids made a fortune on the film, her income helped keep her mother and sister safe and healthy.

This memoir isn’t terribly profound, or incredibly important (except, maybe, to Ms. Cole herself), but it’s an interesting, candid account of a marvelous adventure with enough of “what happened after” to make it feel complete. Ms. Cole is still a working actor, while the other kids who were part of the film left the business (the boy who played Charlie grew up to become a veterinarian – how cool is that?), so technically, I guess that’s a happy ending.

Great read, especially if you’re a fan of the film.

I Want it Now! A Memoir of Life on the Set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Julie Dawn Cole, with Michael Essinger
BearManor Media, February 2011
252 pages
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We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals that Changed Their Lives Forever
Benjamin Mee

Description (from Publishers Weekly):
Between his wife Katherine’s diagnosis of glioblastoma and her quiet death less than three years later, Mee (The Call of DIY), his siblings and his mother bought a bedraggled zoo, complete with decaying buildings, a ragtag group of animals, an eclectic staff and a reputation that had been quickly going to the wolves. In this occasionally charming (to his children: Quiet. Daddy’s trying to buy a zoo) but overly wordy book, Mee writes about caring for his dying wife and their two young children, dealing with Code Red emergencies (when a dangerous animal escapes its confines), hiring staff, learning about his new two- and four-footed charges and setting his sights on refurbishing his zoo into a sanctuary for breeding and raising endangered animals. Mee tends to meander with too-long explanations for one-sentence points, and the awe he feels about each individual animal is repetitive. Coupled with Britishisms that are never explained and a curious lack of varied wild animal stories, this book that was obviously meant to make animal lovers roar with pleasure will only make them whine with frustration.

Review:
I have to confess that this isn’t a book that ever would have crossed my path if I hadn’t seen the movie with my husband and parents over the December holidays. We chose this film because I wanted something that was non-violent and uplifting, and while the movie re-set the events in America, and sanitized the more brutal aspects of Benjamin Mee’s memoir, it was true to the source material in spirit, and quite enjoyable, overall.

The book, on the other hand, was naked, honest, sad (at times), happy (at other times) and ultimately left me with a better understanding of what it takes to commit to something to life-changing as to buy and renovate a wild animal park. I mean, I’m involved with dog rescue, and this makes my efforts seem so puny by comparison.

Still, it was a satisfying read. I wish Mee’s wife had lived, at least long enough to see the zoo turn a profit. I wish some of it had been easier for him and his family.

Memoirs are tough to read, because you sometimes find that you dislike the author. Mee’s memoir left nothing to dislike, and made me long to fly to England and visit his zoo.

We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals that Changed Their Lives Forever
Benjamin Mee
Weinstein Books, September 2008
272 Pages
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Description (from Publishers Weekly):
A mid-life crisis and a latent sense of adventure caused book editor South to give up her life in publishing and take up residence on the Bossanova, a steel-hull trawler she bought before knowing how to captain it. The subtitle is largely hyperbolic-South’s time “at sea” was really a short, if perilous, sail from Florida to Sag Harbor, where the boat is now docked-but South makes an interesting memoir from her skillful observation of the sailing life: “Good seamanship isn’t the thoughtless instinct that salty dogs make it seem to be. It’s the good habit of always asking yourself the right questions in the right order and answering them thoughtfully.” Sometimes, she seems to have forgotten landlubbers might pick up her book; a sentences like, “One danger is that your bow will slow and your stern will get kicked out to the side, causing you to be beam-to,” is just one head-scratcher of many for the uninitiated. She can be clumsy when transitioning between sailing stories and other aspects of her life (“This sailing was happiness. For a time, happiness, too, had been Leslie.”), but her clear-eyed perspective and involving stories keep the narrative moving. This small but well-observed memoir is a worthwhile read for anyone stuck in the workaday rut.

I was reading a bunch of ocean-themed books, some fiction, some not, on my Kindle during November and December, and Mary South’s memoir The Cure for Anything is Salt Water popped up on a list of suggestions. I downloaded the sample chapter to my kindle, read it, started reading other stuff, and then finally downloaded the whole book as a Christmas gift to myself. (I almost gave myself an iphone 4 after I cracked the glass on my 3GS, but we ultimately decided I should wait til summer, and the iPhone 5, and books are better, anyway.)

I really enjoyed South’s storytelling – though sometimes the transitions from the “present” story of sailing her steel barge from Florida to Sag Harbor to the “flashback” story of how she got to that point in time were a little awkward, and sometimes she used more sailing jargon than I think most people understand. I mean, I read a LOT of sailing books, and I knew most of the terms she used, but there were several I had to look up. Also, there was far less sailing in the book than I’d hoped for – just the one trip.

Those quibbles aside, however, I really enjoyed the book. Ms. South is witty and engaging, and some of her comments about lesbian dating made me laugh. I kept following my husband around reading passages and laughing delightedly.

Also, I totally related to the desire to chuck it all, pack up the dogs, and live on a boat. Well, maybe not a boat, but if there’s a small coastal village in Scotland or Ireland with a good pub, great cafe, a decent bookstore, and high-speed internet access, I’m SO there.

But I digress.

Mary South’s book isn’t just a mid-life crisis memoir. It’s a really engaging peek at two worlds: that of being a single woman over thirty-five, and that of being the captain of your own ship.

Both were enjoyable.

Goes well with: Freshly caught blue fish and a glass of wine.

Description (from Publishers Weekly):
A glittering emblem of global modernity carries a tinge of tribal clannishness and xenophobia in this revealing travelogue through the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Tatchell (The Poet of Baghdad), an English journalist who spent her youth in Abu Dhabi, compares the present city, with its skyscrapers, lavish malls, and Guggenheim branch, to the bedouin past it has all but obliterated. She finds that Abu Dhabi’s 420,000 official citizens, with an average net worth of million in oil wealth, have traded their camels and tents for SUVs, condos, and glitzy, indolent jet-setting; surrounding them is a sea of exploited foreign guest workers, 80% of the population, who build and run the city while living in a stateless limbo. (There are secrets lurking behind the shopping and partying, she finds during a Kafkaesque quest to locate the national newspaper archive.) The author’s teeming, sharply etched portrait introduces readers to tycoons, a wastrel playboy with a pet panther, a bored housewife trying to score bootleg liquor, avant-garde artists, nostalgic British expats, and a Lithuanian prostitute. Tatchell’s keen powers of observation and personal connections enable her to convey the hidden reality of this mirage-like city.

I don’t know what the best under eye cream might be, but I do know that the best way to get a free pedicure is to walk barefoot in sand, and speaking of sand, there’s a great moment in Jo Tatchell’s memoir A Diamond in the Desert: Behind the Scenes in Abu Dhabi, the World’s Richest City where Jo, visiting her childhood hometown as an adult, finds that she misses the desert sands that have been supplanted by modern construction. She sees some sand between a couple of buildings and takes off her shoes so she can feel it on her feet. It wasn’t a huge moment, but it’s the kind of detail and emotional connection that is what makes this book so delightful on so many levels.

But I digress.

When Ms. Tatchell contacted me and offered me a copy to review, I didn’t connect her name with the voice I’ve heard from my radio when she’s been on NPR, and I’m glad of that, because I would have been slightly intimidated. Who am I to review her work? I confess, I also felt a bit inadequate. I read a lot; I try to keep myself aware of the goings on in the world outside the bubble of SEO copywriting and improvisational comedy in which I reside, but the history of the Arab world is so rich and complicated that I don’t feel I have an accurate grasp on it.

Despite this, or maybe because of it, I quickly found myself engrossed in Tatchell’s book. As many reviewers have said, it’s part memoir, part travelogue, part history, but it’s also a completely human story. In many ways, it’s also a twist on the whole “you can’t go home again” theme, because Tatchell did spend part of her childhood living in Abu Dhabi in the 1970s at the dawn of OPEC (which period I really only knew through works of fiction like The Eight before reading this book). Going back to any childhood home as an adult makes us see it with new eyes. Things we thought were huge often seem diminished, things we remember as sparkly and new often seem dingy and faded, or, conversely, things we remember as worn down are likely to greet us in new, gentrified forms.

Beyond the homecoming aspect of A Diamond in the Desert, however, there is also a look at modern Arab culture that most Westerners will never really experience, and it’s shared candidly, without any political agenda. Tatchell’s observations are honest ones. She sees the changes in “her” city, both good and bad. Abu Dhabi, after all, is one of the few Arab countries with a decidedly pro-Western stance, modeling a form of tolerance we could learn from , and demonstrating that cultural evolution is possible, and even necessary, in a world so full of dynamic change.

Not that Abu Dhabi is perfect, of course. Tatchell never implies that it is, and she shows us its faults as well . In everything from the glossing over, nay, the total erasure of a child abduction that happened in her youth, to the careful non-existence of newspaper archives from the same period, to her recollection of a party she attended as a young woman where the host kept a panther on the balcony (I felt bad for the panther), she shows us Abu Dhabi as naked as a city can be under the cloak of civilization all cities wear.

Tatchell may not love Abu Dhabi unconditionally, but her respect for the city, the country, the culture all shine through. She shows us a different life, and while she may comment on apparent social and/or political inequities (women, for example, are still not treated as equals there, but then, we Westerners aren’t exactly enlightened about the treatment of women (or GLBTQQI folks, or ethnic minorities, or, or, or…) either. We just cover it better.) she does so without harsh judgement.

If you want a scandalous story about murder and crime and intrigue, this is not the book for you. If, on the other hand, you want an honest glimpse behind the veil of culture, with hints of intrigue and peeks at darker politics, as told from someone who has lived in the culture, you should race to the bookstore or click on one of the links above, and buy this book today. You won’t regret it.

And you might even learn something.

I know I did.

Goes well with mint tea and chicken shawarma.

Summary (from Publishers Weekly):
Famous for her roles as an angst-ridden teen in John Hughes classics like Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, Ringwald, now a 40-year-old wife and mother living largely outside the celebrity spotlight, seems a credible source of advice for young women and a likely fount of behind-the-scenes Hollywood anecdotes; unfortunately, she provides little of either in this uninspired self-help memoir. Like a well-meaning but distant friend, the actress shares advice and observations on topics like love, clothes, and food, often focusing on the inane and obvious (souvenir t-shirts are both ugly and ill-fitting; rushing into sex is usually a mistake) rather than the personal or perceptive: “When you’re a teenager, you’re forever thinking: Do they like me? When you’re a grown-up… the question becomes: Do I like them?” Ringwald occasionally involves her personal history, including the fact that the early stages of her romance with husband number two were mostly conducted over email, but she skimps on the details that her fans are probably looking for, with surprisingly little reference to the movie work that made her an icon of suburban youth in the 1980s. Color illustrations.

When my friend Deb told me she had a copy of Molly Ringwald’s book, I immediately asked if I could borrow it when she was through. I finally had a chance to read it earlier this week, and I loved it.

First, let’s be clear, in this book Ringwald gives advice on health, fashion, self-esteem, love and any number of things we women need advice about, without claiming to be an expert in any of those. In fact, she freely admits she’s sharing her own experiences in the hope that others will gain from the life lessons she’s learned. Also? She’s the kind of person – at least as presented here – that you’d be instantly comfortable meeting for a cappuccino, or hanging out with at the bookstore. For an actor, she’s incredibly real and accessible. So, don’t expect her to wax rhapsodic about hoodia gordonii or plastic surgery. She’s all about small, common sense changes.

As to my impressions of the book – I loved it! She’s not telling us anything that Tim Gunn doesn’t tell women every day, but she’s filtering it through her own experiences – especially where turning forty, having children later in life than the current trend, and marrying a younger man are involved. She’s candid in the way that someone you grew up watching in cool movies but isn’t actually someone you know seems candid. She’s playful. She’s self-deprecating.

She’s a thoroughly engaging writer, and this is a thoroughly engaging book.

If you’re over thirty-five, you NEED this book. If you’re under thirty-five, go rent Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, and For Keeps and then go buy this book.

Because it really is a wonderful compilation of whimsical turns of phrase and really good advice.

Goes well with French onion soup and a glass of wine.

I have to confess: I really only read Cybill Shepherd’s autobiography, Cybill Disobedience, because I saw it listed as a free digital download on KindleIQ.com, and while I do have standards, I’ll read anything from the backs of cereal boxes to eye wrinkle cream reviews if I’m doing it to test out a new toy. Or at least, the fact that it was a free download was why I began reading Shepherd’s book. She’s so honest and engaging, and funny, however, that very soon I was reading it for its own sake.

The thing about celebrity memoirs is that they’re more interesting if you have a decent working knowledge of the author’s body of work. In the case of Ms. Shepherd, I knew her from Moonlighting and the later sitcom that bore her name – Cybill, and liked both. I also remember her Loreal commercials (for hair color, not for eye wrinkle cream), and sometime in the last year she was in a Hallmark movie (or maybe it was a Lifetime movie?) about a divorced empty-nester who resumes her college education, which movie I quite liked. I knew nothing about her career in film from the decades before Moonlighting, nor had I any clue of her politics or her relationship history.

After reading the book, I was left awed by how very cool Cybill Shepherd is, politically and personally. She’s the kind of person I’d love to have as an ‘affectionate’ auntie, or stand next to in a protest march, and her book was entertaining, interesting, as candid as possible without jeopardizing the semblance of privacy her family needs, and really sort of compelling.

Goes well with sweet tea and barbecue.

When author Frank Zajaczkowski contacted me about reading and reviewing his memoir I was flattered – as I always am. Then I went to his website and read the excerpts posted there, and immediately I was hooked, not just by his story – his journey from a small boy in post-war England to southern California, and his other journey, less prominent in the book, but still relevant, from California to the Virgin Islands, as an adult – but also because his descriptive paragraphs have some of the best imagery I’ve read in years, though, granted, a lot of what I’ve been reading this summer is beachy novels about women with designer houses, custom blinds, SUVs, strings of kids, and the ability to either summer or just live on the island of Nantucket.

So Mr. Zajaczkowski’s book served as a palate cleanser, of sorts, but also as a glimpse into the recent past. That the author is the same age as my mother, who is also the child of a war veteran, also an American living abroad (in her case, Mexico, which, I suspect, shares more similarities than differences with St. Thomas, despite the long distance between them), made the story resonate with me. I felt his trepidation at being put on a train, then on a boat to America, at a young age, and cowered with him when his alcoholic father grew violent. I felt his sense of loss, and even betrayal as his brother left the family to become an actor (I won’t share what he’s done, but I confess I looked him up on IMDB after I finished the book), and even more so, at the end of the book, when the high school aged Frank and his sister are abandoned again, by their mother this time.

In between those two events – the ocean crossing and the final betrayal, there are a series of coming of age stories – seeing the Tarzan house, kissing a girl for the first time, first jobs, first cars – all seen through the slightly filmy lens of memory, but with no less impact than if they were happening now.

Interspersed among the memories are a fresher set of memories, that of the adult Frank’s move from L.A. to St. Thomas with his wife, and the frustrations tied to that process – delayed shipments of belongings, hurricanes and other storms, where to spend holidays when you no longer have a home “back home…” the list goes on.

If there are any flaws in Passage from England they are limited to a few typos that got missed in editing (it happens at all levels of publishing) and my own desire to find out what happened after the last scene – but that, I hope, will be in Zajaczkowski’s next memoir.

As to this one, I’d recommend it to anyone who is part of the “baby boomer” generation, and to those of us who are their children, to ex-pats, immigrants, and the spouses and friends thereof, and to anyone who wants to know what life was like just a few decades ago. It’s a compelling story, and a great read.

Goes well with: fish tacos and cold beer.

I’ve been a fan of Melissa Gilbert ever since the first episode of “Little House of the Prairie” first aired, but I hadn’t realized she’d published her memoir until I saw it for sale among the souvenirs of “Little House on the Prairie: the Musical” several weeks ago. I ended up buying the trade paperback version, and reading it in one night.

In Prairie Tale Gilbert starts with her childhood as a kid in pigtails going to commercial auditions, and walks us through the grittiest details of her life until now. She speaks wryly about her nervousness about the kissing scenes and love scenes with Dean Butler, who played Almanzo on the show, and candidly about her first serious relationship, with Rob Lowe. She shares her dreams, and also shares her struggle with the loss of Michael Landon, and her deeper struggles with both self esteem and alcohol. If she’d been using Lipovox, she’d have written about that too, no doubt.
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In the end, this book does what a good memoir should: it makes us feel as if we’ve had a long chat with someone we once wished we could be friends with.

Goes well with strong coffee and a slice of corn bread.

I have a memory from when I was twelve or thirteen (but probably twelve): I was sitting in the living room with my mother, stepfather, and stepbrother, textbooks strewn all around us on the floor, watching this movie called V, about aliens coming to earth to steal water and eat people. Mike Donovan, played by Marc Singer, was supposed to be the sex symbol in the show, but I was a geek, even then, and it was the friendly alien, Willie, that caught my attention. That was my first introduction to Robert Englund.

Two years later, had seen all of the V mini-series, and was excited to find out about an upcoming weekly series. I’d also seen one of Englund’s horror movies, Galaxy of Terror (notable for its weirdly impressive cast, and the scene in which Erin “Joanie Cunningham” Moran gets raped by a giant maggot), and was about to be introduced to another of this actor’s iconic characters, one Freddy Krueger, for the first time. While I was never the type of fangirl who wrote letters or anything, I’ll cop to having a crush on Robert Englund from the age of twelve. But we knew I was weird.

Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that when I read on Englund’s website (RobertEnglund.com) that he was publishing a memoir, and that one could buy regular copies from Amazon.com and regular booksellers, or pay a little more for a signed copy, I quickly whipped out my paypal ID, and ordered a signed copy. That was in October. On Halloween (appropriate, no?) I received an autographed photo of Robert Englund as Freddy, with an apologetic note that my copy would be delayed.

Things happened, and all of a sudden, I realized it was almost MARCH, and I’d never received my book. I sent a note to the customer service address, and received an email back that evening, that my order would be “checked on.” That was exactly a week ago, Sunday, February 28th. On Wednesday, March 3rd, I found my book in the mailbox. The cardboard priority mail envelope had been slashed as if by Freddy Krueger’s glove (not intentionally, I’m certain), and the post office had encased it in plastic, but the book was in bubble wrap, and unharmed. I read through all the postcards inside it, looked inside for the autograph (it came with an accompanying doodle of Freddy, drawn by Mr. Englund himself), and then left for Bible Study (and don’t think I don’t recognize a bit of irony in THAT).

I arrived home, did a bit of work, and then settled in to read.

By the time Fuzzy came to bed, I was two-thirds of the way through with the book, and I succumbed to the call and turned on a booklight, so I could finish it before going to sleep.

But, I promised a review. So:

Robert Englund’s memoir of his childhood entry into acting, and his resulting career as a character actor and horror movie icon is a delightful read. Candid and funny, it flows like a really good conversation, leaving you with the feeling that you’ve heard some great stories and sipped some excellent beer. The ghost writer/editor who helped shape the book was able to make everything sound like the voice Englund uses in interviews – a weird combination of erudition, cynicism, and charm, gregariousness. This is a man who takes his craft seriously, but doesn’t take himself too seriously.

I enjoyed learning more about the series of events that led Robert to the role of scream god Freddy Krueger, and about his relationship with role over the years. As much as I’m a bit disappointed that he won’t be reprising the part in the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street due out this summer, I’ve read enough interviews stating that he’s okay with that decision, that I believe he is, and frankly, I’m enjoying catching him in dark, quirky parts that don’t require him to look like a mangled pizza.

While Hollywood Monster is probably best appreciated by fans, it’s such a great read that even non-fans would probably enjoy it. In fact, I don’t think it feels like a celebrity memoir at all. But then, it shouldn’t, because even though his job site is generally a movie set, Englund describes himself as a “working stiff,” and his book serves to remind us that working actors come in many, many flavors.

Personally, I like the dark, sardonic ones, best.

The Cloister Walk was very popular when it first came out, but I had no use for such things until several years later. Now, reading about this woman from Dakota (via Hawaii) spending time experiencing the liturgy of the hours while living with Benedictine monks seems so beautiful and helpful. I’m not sure I have the discipline for such an endeavor, but there’s something in me that wants to try.

In a few minutes the chimes will sound again, and I will find calm after the last echo of the bell, just as I always find calm in the middle of a good book.