As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes (on CD)

As You Wish: Inconcievable Tales From the Making of The princess Bride
by Cary Elwes [Compact Disc 791.437 PriYe]

The Princess Bride is one of my all-time favorite movies. When I first saw, a couple of months ago, that actor Cary Elwes (Wesley in the film) had written a behind-the-scenes volume about the making of the movie, following the film’s 25th anniversary, I looked forward to reading it. Time got away from me, but when I noticed the audiobook-on-cd version on display, I couldn’t pass it up. In the end, I’m glad I listened to the audio version, because it was absolutely charming. In addition to Elwes narrating his own text, many of the other cast and crew members narrate their own contributions to the book, in the form of letters and remembrances. Hearing Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, Chris Sarandon and Christopher Guest share tidbits about the experience of working on their film was absolutely terrific. Elwes is the emotional anchor though, talking about how much of a life-changing role Wesley was, and the tremendous impact the film has had on his career, and the wonderful experiences he continues to have, interacting with fans of the film, who now cross three generations in the same family, in many cases. I can’t recommend this audiobook highly enough; my only caveat is that I wish there had been even more “making of” details included…in this end this is a fairly slim volume. I absolutely loved Elwes’ impressions of Rob Reiner and Andre the Giant as he recalls conversations with both those men. If you loved The Princess Bride, you’ll love this book/audiobook as well!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The original feature film The Princess Bride, and the novel by William Goldman that started the whole thing in the first place!]

[ publisher’s As You Wish web site ] | [ official Cary Elwes Twitter feed ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!