Nonfiction Book Reviews

The Sound of Music Companion by Laurence Maslon was a fantastic book for Sound of Music aficionados like me.  I had just finished reading Home: A Memoir of the Early Years by Julie Andrews, when I saw this book at the library.  I picked it up and read it cover to cover in just a couple of days.  It’s meant to be a coffee table book, true, but it also provides a ton of interesting information.

I had read and watched specials on the Fox version of The Sound of Music with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, so most of that information was not new to me.  I hadn’t heard or read as much about the von Trapp family themselves, so I learned new information there, but by far the most new info came when I was reading about the various theater productions of the musical.  I hadn’t realized that so many different versions had been done, and so I got a much more rounded picture of how The Sound of Music became the international powerhouse that it did.

Some of the stories about Maria von Trapp were eye-opening to me - she could be a difficult lady to get along with, and the producers of the movie did their best to avoid her at all costs.  And Christopher Plummer seemed like quite the stinker - he looked down his nose at the whole movie as being too cutesy and sugary for him.  His character was aloof and proud in the movie, and apparently that wasn’t much of a stretch for him.  “Inside stories” like that and more made the book a page turner for me.

The pictures are huge, colorful, and beautiful, and the information was well laid out.   For any huge Sound of Music fans out there, I strongly suggest picking this book up at Barnes and Noble and adding it to your collection.  And to everyone else, if you’re simply interested in learning a little more about this global phenomenon, the pictures alone make this book worthwhile.

4.75 stars out of 5

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