Here Julie Andrews collaborates once again with her daughter Emma to bring us a sequel to her first reminiscence, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years (2008). That book covered her childhood and the beginnings of her performing career on the stage, into the 1950s and early 1960s. This book covers the years 1963-1986. And wow! Was she ever busy!

Naturally, when many of us think of Julie Andrews, we immediately also think of just two major motion pictures: Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. Yet she starred in many more movies, including Torn Curtain, Hawaii, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Star!, Darling Lili, 10 and Victor/Victoria. Here she takes us through each production, offering inside scoops on how they were filmed and what challenges she faced as an actor and singer. She's candid about times when she is unsure of herself: especially at first, as she made the transition from the theatre to the big screen; and also, as she moved from singing roles to sheer acting ones. The demands of grueling filming sessions come through in her vivid descriptions. Included are the examples of the steamy love scenes she has to portray with such leading men as James Garner, Paul Newman and Rock Hudson. (Wow.) We come away considering how amazing it is that these pictures get made at all. Now I want to go back and watch all of the movies again, just to catch these new insider nuances.

Julie's personal life was just as demanding as her professional one, if not more so. We tag along as she marries set designer Tony Walton; as she gives birth to their daughter, Emma; as their long-distance relationship falls apart; and as she begins to give more attention to director and playwright Blake Edwards, whom she later marries. With various individual obligations to both work and family, the members of the Andrews-Walton-Edwards clan lead a chaotic life. They bounce from Los Angeles to New York, to London, to Paris, to Gstaad, Switzerland, and back again, over and over. It's exhausting to listen to. It must have been even more stressful to experience firsthand.

Julie can recount salient details from these days, decades ago, because she kept a diary. From time to time, she quotes liberally from its pages, here. It comes in quite handy for revealing all of these insights about past productions and the people involved in them. And sure, she drops a lot of celebrity names throughout this telling. But when it happens that Bruce Lee or Henry Mancini comes over for dinner, what else can you say? On the other hand, she seems to feel the need to disclose nearly every physical or medical malady that every member of her extended family comes down with. (It's the latent caretaker in her, I'm sure.) This stuff grows tedious, though. It can verify for us that celebrities are not immune to the difficulties of everyday existence. These challenges just pile on to everything else that they are doing. It can also confirm that we wouldn't have wanted to trade places with Julie AT ALL. (Steamy love scenes, notwithstanding.) Maybe there are some facts that she didn't need to share.

I had forgotten that Julie has also written children's books. The first one came about from a dare from her stepdaughter Jenny. Hearing a bit about her inspirations and her writing process, away from the public eye, is a nice change from the tensions of the filming schedules. The exercise must also have served as a joyful relief and as a diversion from the swirl of everything else happening in her nonstop world.

As is now my habit, I listened to the audio edition of this book during my daily commute, for 13.5 hours on 11 CDs. Julie reads it herself, enunciating the text quite exactly, in her signature and recognizable tone. How can the experience be anything other than delightful? The answer is, of course, that it can't. Julie makes even the most difficult times in her life sound like lessons we would be hearing from a proper umbrella-toting nanny or a novitiate-turned-governess. (The ability to fly, being optional.) I was also pleased that Julie took the time to read her acknowledgements pages at the end of the book. Too many audio editions ignore such peripherals. Even better: a PDF of 34 pages of photos was included on the last CD. Are vendors finally understanding that listeners deserve the same access to ALL of the "extras" as print readers? How wonderful!

Home Work is an interesting title for a memoir penned by someone who spent a great deal of time on the stage and on the screen. And yet, for Julie Andrews, this phrase represents the two aspects of her life that she adores the most. And they're probably listed in her preferred order, too. Her life has truly been a fascinating and fortunate one. And while she was involved in many projects and productions in her career, Julie Andrews will forever and always be Mary Poppins and Maria von Trapp. Period. And that's not such a bad thing.