20 supremely cozy books and movies for hibernation season

5. The Princess Bride

Though it’s well-known now through the 1987 feature film, The Princess Bride first began life as a 1973 novel by William Goldman. Unusually, Goldman decided to pretend that he had abridged the earlier work of fictional author S. Morgenstern. Throughout the book, he comments on “Morgenstern’s” work in asides. An eventual epilogue came late because, said Goldman, it was “having trouble getting published because of legal difficulties with S. Morgenstern’s estate”.

In the novel (which is entirely Goldman’s work, to be clear), we meet a beautiful young woman named, of all things, Buttercup. She lives on a vaguely Renaissance-era farm in the country of Florin. Despite her outer beauty, she’s kind of a jerk to Westley, a farm hand. Though she calls him “farm boy” and orders him to do chore after chore for her, he only responds with “as you wish”.

Buttercup later realizes that “as you wish” is really “I love you”, and quickly falls in love with Westley in return. He leaves to earn his fortune before they marry but is later reportedly killed at sea by the Dread Pirate Roberts. She becomes incredibly depressed, claiming that she will never love anyone again. Might as well marry the shady Prince Humperdinck, then, who’s taken a fancy to her.

Before she can become Princess Buttercup, however, she is kidnapped by three outlaws. These are the loudmouth Vizzini, fencing genius Inigo Montoya, and the gigantic Turkish wrestler, Fezzik. They are all pursued by a mysterious masked man who, upon closer inspection, has an awfully familiar face.

There’s not enough space to follow the twisting, turning plot of The Princess Bride, and neither should we spoil it for you. Take joy in uncovering the complicated relationships, everyday heroes, and intimidating bad guys in both this book and the beloved film adaptation.