This Is Living: How I Found Health and Happiness

Actress and Weight Watchers spokesperson Redgrave describes this book as an opportunity to ``leap back down the lanes of my memory, events falling patternless like autumn leaves.'' She's not far off-- This Is Living is an often irritating and ultimately bewildering jumble of recollections, anecdotes, inspirational wisdom, plugs for Weight Watchers and 100 recipes. We learn of her struggles with weight (she calls it the Fat Ogre), her coming of age as an actress and coming to terms with her bisexual father Sir Michael, her role as a Weight Watchers advocate and how to make a low-fat version of ``bubble and squeak.'' The book has occasional glints of the sunny charm and humor that have endeared Redgrave to audiences on Broadway, movies and TV: Sir Laurence Olivier told her she had a limited future on the stage because she was ``our flopsy bunny actress''; her elation at learning that winning the role of the lumpy ``Georgy Girl'' enabled her to eat as much as she pleased. But Redgrave obviously wanted to accomplish much, much more--to the chagrin of the reader. Reflecting this ambition, the book's tone shifts wildly (chapters are interspersed with long, italicized ``memory'' passages) and the resulting hodgepodge is thin indeed. (May)