He was quite cheery until the Iocane took effect.

The Princess Bride ~

'A tale of true love and high adventure, pirates, princesses, giants, miracles, fencing, and a frightening assortment of wild beasts.'

Sure you all have seen the movie. You probably have quite a few scenes memorized too. But with nearly all great movies, there is behind it an even greater book, and that is the case here. Most people I discuss the movie with have never heard that it was based on a book, but it says so in the beginning credits, "based on the novel by S. Morgenstern." "Based" is not the word I would use in most movie/book instances. To me, based is a word used when a director follows the basic plot of a book but has taken creative license with the story, changing and adding things either because there's a time crunch or they don't think it's necessary.

Well I saw this particular movie many years before I read the book and when I finally read it I was very surprised that I was actually able to quote lines from it. They had followed the book so closely that I was surprised to find that the characters in the book were just as amazing and witty (if not more so) in the book as they were on screen. The author, William Goldman, who would have you believe that he's not really the author - just some guy who has painstakingly edited an ancient documentary on the rival countries Florin and Guilder - writes with such humor that at times I sat there guffawing - {Sophia "They laughed harder than it was funny." ;)}

I received this book for Christmas last year, reading it for the second time was even better than the first. One day soon after Sophia and I went shopping at Barnes and Noble where I convinced her that she also must own and read the book. So we set off in search of it, but try as we may we couldn't find it! We looked under action, fantasy, fiction, teen, classics, documentary, but it wasn't turning up anywhere! Finally we went up to the desk and asked a clerk if they could help us. The guy said "oh yeah! I just saw that book a few days ago...what's the author's name?" - "William Goldman."and off we went, the three of us, to search for Mr. Goldman...but we found nothing. The clerk was shaking his head now saying that he had just seen it, and where could it be. We went back to the desk where he asked the computer where it would be. The answer we got: Science-Fiction.....there was a moment of silence between the three of us as we exchanged confused glances. "Science-Fiction?" one of us said, "really?" And off the three of us went(again) to search for the book, this time in the science-fiction section.

We found it and Sophia bought it and she loved it.

So when you are done with the book you are reading now, assuming that you are a bookworm like myself, rush off to B&N and run to the Sci-Fi section. Buy The Princess Bride and laugh. NO, it is not a girly girl book, there are pirates, and monsters, Rodents of Unusual Sizes, albinos, men with six fingers, flesh eating sharks, fencing, kidnapping, revenge, angry Spaniards, rhyming giants, scheming Sicilians, and masks! As well as a man trying to start a war by murdering his own wife. But there is humor, and some touching moments...it's not all action. The plot thickens, back stories are told, and the prince is not so charming as the pirates. Try it. I think you'll like it. If not, you can check it off your 'books I've read' list and let it live on your shelf, never to be touched again.