As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes

Summary: Funny, warm hearted recounting of one of the best movies ever made.

Seth Simmons turned me on to this book several years ago (his review here). It was on sale a couple weeks ago and I finally picked it up.

If you have any love of the Princess Bride movie, As You Wish is well worth picking up. And by the way, if you have only watched the movie and not read the book, you are missing out.

Cary Elwes has written an excellent book. It is a light hearted book. It is full of lots of self depreciating humor. There is not any dirty laundry. And while there is lots of one actor appreciating another, the words all seem genuine. It really seems like everyone really enjoyed making the movie and really enjoyed the people they were making the movie with. Rob Reiner seems like a wonderful director to work for.

The actual narrative of the making of the movie was mixed in with discussions about the people. My favorite is the long section about Andre the Giant. Everyone really seems to have loved him. He was only 46 when he passed away. But his health was already quite bad by the time he was working on the movie. The descriptions of the amount of alcohol that he was able to put away is incredible.

As You Wish is a book that should only be listened to. It is possible to read it in print, but do not. Most of the quotes from the other actors or crew are actually read by them. And those that are not directly read by the person being quoted were read by Cary Elwes. Elwes not only does great impersonations, he knows where the jokes are and knows how to play them. This is a funny book and one I should have gotten to long ago. I just wish I had finished it while it was still on sale so everyone would have no reason not to run out and get it immediately.

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook