The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure (The 'Good Parts' Version)

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Summary: Fencing, Fighting, Torture, Poison, Yadda Yadda Yadda
Review: How many books can claim to be classics before they are even published? This one can, and does. Engrossing, suspenseful, and hilarious, this book takes the most basic of plots and makes it so rich that any reader can enjoy this book. Without giving anything away, the deception in the book is without bounds and brilliant, and the eventual discovery is deliciously humiliating. One of the few books that can make you laugh out loud, this book is definitely worth getting

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Summary: WOW! <smile>
Review: What a story!!! Adventure..romance...it has everything! I was enthralled with it..from Fezzik's rhymes to the droll humor in the book, I fell in love immediately. Although...I wish Goldman hadn't abridged it. ;) Only Morgenstern can talk about packing for 56 and a half pages. :

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Summary: My opinion about the story of the book " The Princess Bride"
Review: It is not fair that I rated this book 8 because to me this book deserves a 9 or up. The only reason that i give the book a 8 is that I am not a person that enjoys to be fooled ( because ever since I got to this country 3 years ago I've been fooled by everyone I know )and this book did exactly that!! However, I have to give credit to William Goldman for doing a awsome job of fooling the readers. Being a fantsy book reader myself I enjoyed this book very much. Like all others the author did a good job of bring things that we (human) can only dream to life, in addition the book's setting and plot are not banal at all, but I have to admit that I had almost thorwn the book in to the trash can when I read to the part where "Westly" died. One more thing that I have to point out is that unlike my other friends I think the prince is nothing but a useless, pusillanimous, and arrogant little fool. P.S. The ending should be more conclusive and happier. Because people like me who doesn't have that much of self-confidence and happiness in our lives just can't bare the thought of the terrible fate that the newly re-united couple and their newly found friends might face in the future. In case you wonder why I don't have a E-mail address the answer is that I'm a student who typed this up in Wotton High School. And my name is Bing Zhao. Thank you for your time, and have a nice day to you all.

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Summary: I had kids just so I could read them this book.
Review: I've followed the literary career of William Goldman ever since "Temple of Gold", "Soldier in the Rain", and "Boys and Girls Together". This extraordinarily gifted novelist/essayist/screenwriter has done more to open my mind and warm my heart than anyone or anything over the past three decades. Since I was already familiar with Mr. Goldman's work, I grabbed up "the Princess Bride" when it hit the local library in 1973 (many, many years before Rob Reiner's movie version). I was expecting an enjoyable tale, filled with wry humor and pathos and the kinds of intricately woven twists and turns of plot that are his trademark. However, none of his previous novels prepared me for this book... I was, quite simply, blown away. The only regret I have is that I never got to read Bill's version of the reunion scene between Buttercup and Westley (blame it on Kermit Shog and the Morganstern estate). *sigh* Well, life isn't fair...

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Summary: Quite conceivably the most amazing book ever written
Review: The greatest Love story of all time - Not one couple a century is this lucky. If you read it, it will make you truly happy. The suspense, the humour, the comedy, the crying, the starlet and the psychiatrist wife all go to make this book probably the best collection of good parts that I have ever had the fortune to read. Life isn't fair, and this book tells you that but it also tells you that you should never give up trying for what you want. No matter what it is, if you want it badly enough, you have to keep trying. It took me years to find a copy - I have now bought 4 - I lend it out and never see it again!! If you haven't read this book, what are you reading this for - go buy it!!

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Summary: You knew when to laugh, when to cry or just wonder...
Review: I love this book(and also the movie) a lot. It has charm and elegance entwined with romance. The characters literally lept off the page and into your heart. I cried when Buttercup cried, and even though I knew the story would be the same, I still try to warn her about the lighting sand or the R.O.U.S.'s. I was surprised how closely the movie was to the book. I had seen the movie before reading the book and when the familiar lines I'd heard in the movie came up so often in the book I could imagine the setting, the characters, and even the mood. I love this book because it is funny, romantic, heartfelt, witty, and so unbelievable. The unrealistic side to this book is another reason I love it so much, it takes away from the reality and monotony of the days and gives you reason to believe that true love exists and if it is really true, nothing can possibly stop it, not death, not anything.

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Summary: This is the bestest book in the whole wide world
Review: When I was 15 years old, I loved a boy two years older than I with a passion that can only be understood by a bespectacled, gangly, brainy teenage girl. If this boy had asked me to climb the tallest mountain, ford the deepest river, fake stupidity, donate a kidney, I would have done it just for the chance to be around him. Anyway, he had to read The Princess Bride for english class (this was 1977, and progressive reading lists had finally hit upstate New York.) He went on and on about how funny this book was, how clever, and that it was "the bestest book in the whole wide world." Needless to say, I had to read it. I borrowed his copy (touched by his very hands! read by his very eyes!) and devoured it in two days. And yes, it was funny, and yes, it was clever. But the part that really hit me (and not until years later did I realize how hard) was the scene where the old lady tells a young Billy Goldman that life isn't fair. I had the same sort of epiphany that Goldman did in the book - all of a sudden, things made sense. I might have the most beautiful soul and intelligent mind in the world, but until I lost the glasses (senior year in college) and got a decent haircut (still working on it) and developed a killer bod (still working on the haircut), I was not going to end up with Westley. And that was just the way things were. And it was o.k. Because of William Goldman, I have had a very happy, satisfying life because I stopped looking for fair (that comes from outside) and started working on contentment (that comes from inside). And that is why The Princess Bride is the bestest thing in the whole wide world. Except maybe for cough drops.

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Summary: Great comedy; romance versus real life on several levels.
Review: Goldman works some great magic in this book! He tells a story within a story. And the comical and romantic fable at the heart of the book is truly irresistible, with, as he advertises, the most beautiful woman in the world, the bravest man, true love, absolute courage, and all the best and worst, brightest and darkest, and a ton of action and adventure. But beyond that, the book is full of witty commentary, and ironic observations, as well as a gentle moral lesson produced by juxtaposition with Goldman's real life. In addition, it left me with the burning desire to read the original by S. Morgenstern (yes, it is a real book!), although I know that will be hard to find

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Summary: A wonderful book!
Review: My brother saw the movie asnd recomended it to me. I saw the movie and loved it. Since the book is almost always better than the movie, I bought and read the book. The book was wonderful! Being misguided I loaned the book to a friend who never returned it. Thanks to the invention of the VCR and video store I rented the movie many times. I found the movie and bought it for 1/3 of the price I had already paid renting it. While watching the movie I remarked, to my husband, on the reunion scene that almost made it into the book. It didn't due to the still existing state of S. Morgenstern. He replied, what book? I have been looking for this book since the fall of 1990 when it, due to ill-fate, was loaned to the wrong person. Please, please if there is anything that can be done to get this book reprinted we must try. I am sure it would sell. Look at how video stores can't keep the movie on thier shelves. I want my children to be have the chance to read this book. "The Princess Bride: ...the 'Good Parts' Version, Abridged" by William Goldman is a wonderful, well written book. Sincerely,Roxanne Joslin

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Summary: Best Fantasy book EVER written-a joke within a joke!!
Review: My first exposure to The Princess Bride was watching the movie, i'm a HUGE mandy patinkin fan now, with my neice and nephew two years ago. Then last november when walking with my new girlfriend and talking about our favorite films she told me the story of how goldman wrote the book and had everyone believing he based in an original story his father read him. Then this x-mas while shopping I came across the "good parts version" and had to buy it. The book was funnier than the movie. Goldman has interspersed commentary (explaining what happened in the parts he 'cut out') that make the book one the most hilarious i've ever read. If you've never read this "good parts version" than you've never read!!