A book by an author you've never read before

Title: The Princess Bride
Author: William Goldman
Publication date: 1973

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

These words spoken by Mandy Patinkin in the film The Princess Bride have been emblazoned on T-shirts, memes and Facebook feeds for decades.

This was a rare occurrence for me: reading the book after I'd seen the movie. Truth be told, when I first saw The Princess Bride on film, I didn't even know it was a book until I had a job in a bookstore in the 1990s and found myself shelving it in the Fantasy section. As a sucker for a Kindle Daily Deal (sign up here, you won't regret it), I snatched this one up Oscar weekend for $2.99. My next challenge was slotting it in my Reading Challenge because I was determined to read it.

At more than 400 pages (I was surprised too), this book was longer than my average read. I'm very glad to have read it. I learned that William Goldman also wrote the screenplay for the film and wrote Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, which is my favorite film.

It was lovely to find so many of my favorite scenes from the film were lifted word for word from the book.

"He'll never catch up!" the Sicilian cried. "Inconceivable!"
"You keep using that word!" the Spaniard snapped. "I don't think it means what you think it does."

And of course ...

"You seem a decent fellow," Inigo said. "I hate to kill you." "You seem a decent fellow," answered the man in black. "I hate to die."

I confess that even though I read the book, I heard the actors' voices in my head as if I were listening to the audio book. My one criticism of the book is a writing device employed by Goldman in which he alleges to be abridging the novel written "originally" by S. Morgenstern, if fact the book is subtitled "S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure." These anecdotes can be humorous but more often than not they got tiring and made the book longer than necessary.

What can I tell you about The Princess Bride? If you enjoyed the film, I think you'll enjoy the book. In fact, it's inconceivable that you wouldn't.

Three stars (but really good stars)

Next challenge: A famous author's first book