“The Princess Bride” Is One Of Your Comfort Watches

Have been ghosted or are missing spring training

Hi friends,

I hope you’re all hanging in there the best you can. 

If you’re like me, you’re anxious and angry over Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, wishing there was something, anything, you could do to help and blown away by the bravery of everyday Ukrainians fighting to defend their country.

I’m not a Russia-Ukraine expert by any means, so I’m not going to recommend a book for decoding this situation. Instead, I’m going to recommend you donate to the Kyiv Independent, an English-language news source committed to documenting the invasion in real time. If you’re a reader of this newsletter, you recognize the importance of the written word. This is a chance to support it at a critical time. 

Anyway, this week, I’m offering books that will give you a bit of a break from the world around us.

And, now, what to read if…

You Can Quote Large Parts of “The Princess Bride”

As You Wish by Cary Elwes and Joe Layden

“The Princess Bride,” the 1987 fairy tale adventure flick, is one of my go-to comfort movies. It’s super quotable (“Inconceivable!” “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” “Have fun storming the castle!”), and its combination of humor, sweeping love story and swordplay always brings me joy. (It’s also the rare movie that I think might be better than the book. William Goldman wrote both.) If you too adore “The Princess Bride,” As You Wish, Cary Elwes’s memoir of his time filming the movie is your next read.

Elwes, who played farm boy Westley and the dangerous Man in Black, shares dozens of fun anecdotes, including:

• His hours spent training in sword fighting with Mandy Patinkin.

• Wallace Shawn feared that director Rob Reiner was stuck with him, instead of Danny DeVito, in the role of Vizzini.

• Rob Reiner hosting barbeques in the hotel room he had outfitted with a grill.

• The actor playing the lead Rat of Unusual Size went missing the day he was supposed to film his scene fighting Elwes.

It’s a good read for long-time lovers of the film eager to learn more about everything that went into making it. As You Wish is one of those books that shines on audio. Elwes narrates it, and Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, Wallace Shawn and Robin Wright all make special appearances, giving it a cast reunion feel. Elwes is charming, if a bit bro-y, and the book will likely give you the same lift the movie does.

You’ve Ever Been Ghosted 

The Verifiers by Jane Pek

The Verifiers, Jane Pek’s debut, was one of my most anticipated reads of 2022, and I’m happy to report it lives up to my (extremely high) expectations. 

The book follows Claudia Lin, who recently started working at Veracity, a secretive company that investigates clients’ matches on dating apps. A lifelong fan of Jane Austen and mystery novels, Claudia thinks she’s landed her dream job. She spends her days running background checks on bad dates, monitoring the social media accounts of ghosters and ensuring long-term partners are what they seem. But, when one of her clients vanishes, Claudia goes rogue, breaks Veracity’s protocols and investigates the disappearance. While searching for her client, she uncovers a conspiracy. 

The Verifiers is a fascinating and compelling book that hooked me quickly. It’s equal parts literary mystery, wry commentary on tech and dating, a coming-of-age story and a family saga. But, it was Claudia that kept me reading. She’s a well-drawn, multi-faceted character: a queer, bike-riding book nerd keeping her new job and sexuality secret from her traditional Chinese mother. I’m hoping this is the first book in a series. I’m excited to see what Claudia — and Pek — do next.

You’re Really Missing Spring Training

The Cactus League by Emily Nemens

Baseball’s preseason games were scheduled to start on February 26, but thanks to an ongoing labor dispute, they’ve been delayed until at least March 7. Baseball fans looking to get their fix after a long winter have had their hopes stymied and are stuck watching ESPN coverage of negotiations instead of America’s pastime.

If you’re missing baseball and looking for a book that captures the spirit of spring training, look no further than Emily Nemens’s The Cactus League, a series of intertwined short stories about preseason in Arizona. Each chapter of Nemens’s book focuses on a different person in the baseball system — the stadium’s organ player, a rookie attempting to succeed on the field, a legendary sports agent — as they navigate the start of the baseball season. The connective thread between the stories is the fate of Jason Goodyear, the team’s ace outfielder who is struggling on and off the field.

In between each of the nine (of course there are nine!) stories, a baseball writer, who embodies all the worst clichés of the genre, provides his commentary, comparing the baseball season to the Earth’s geological eras. 

Nemens, a former editor of the Paris Review, clearly loves baseball. Both her fandom and her literary skill shine through on the page. The Cactus League isn’t a traditional baseball book, but it’s a lovely one. 

Reminder rec: Driving Mr. Yogi: Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball’s Greatest Gift by Harvey Araton depicts the relationship between Yankee legends Yogi Berra and Ron Guidry, formed over the years spent as coaches at spring training. 

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Two reminders:

• I hope to see many of you at memoirist Liz Schier’s virtual event with East City Books tomorrow at 8 PM. RSVP here. 

• Today is the last day to enter Bookshop.org’s “Free Books for Life” raffle. You can enter here! 

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What to Read If is a free weekly book recommendation newsletter. Need a rec? Want to gush about a book? Reply to this email, leave a comment or find me on Twitter @elizabethheld.

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