Books like “The Princess Bride”

What to read after “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Spirit Thief
Rachel Aaron · 2010
Similar atmosphere: “Whimsical”
- Whimsical
Eli Monpress is a wizard and a thief who would rather have a larger bounty than a heavier purse. To raise it he kidnaps a king, which brings the Spirit Court's envoy Miranda Lyonette after him. Eli's easy charm hides a plan that puts more than his own bounty at stake.
2
The Colour of Magic
Terry Pratchett · 1983
Similar atmosphere: “Whimsical” and “Satire”
Rincewind, a wizard who failed out of magic school, is saddled with guiding Twoflower, the Discworld's first tourist, on a chaotic tour. Their journey drags a naive optimist, a walking luggage chest and a very unwilling hero through one disaster after another.
3
Tress of the Emerald Sea
Brandon Sanderson · 2023
Similar atmosphere: “Whimsical”
- Whimsical
- Quest
Tress lives on an island where the seas are made of deadly spores. When the man she loves is taken by the Sorceress, she leaves her ordinary life, gathers an unlikely crew and sails toward the midnight sea to bring him home.
4
The Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame · 1908
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read” and “Whimsical”
- Comfort Read
- Whimsical
Mole leaves his underground home for the riverbank, where Rat, Badger and the reckless Mr. Toad become his friends. Their quiet days of boating and picnics are broken when Toad's craze for motorcars lands him in real trouble, and the four of them must set things right.
5
Going Postal
Terry Pratchett · 2004
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
- Satire
Moist von Lipwig is a con man offered a choice: be hanged, or revive Ankh-Morpork's ruined post office. With the city's mail piled up undelivered in the crumbling post office and a rival message company sabotaging him, he sets out to make the letters move and stay ahead of his own past.
6
Bridge of Birds
Barry Hughart · 1984
Similar atmosphere: “Whimsical”
- Whimsical
- Quest
In an ancient China that never was, a plague falls on the children of a village. Number Ten Ox seeks the sage Master Li, a scholar with 'a slight flaw in his character', and the two set off through ghosts, gods and bandits to find the one cure that can save the children.
7
The Last Unicorn
Peter S. Beagle · 1968
Similar atmosphere: “Whimsical”
- Whimsical
- Quest
A unicorn learns she may be the last of her kind and leaves her forest to search for the others. With a bumbling magician and a sharp-tongued woman she travels to a king's castle, where love and loss wait at the end of the road.
8
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll · 1865
Similar atmosphere: “Whimsical” and “Satire”
- Whimsical
- Satire
Alice follows a hurried white rabbit down a hole and lands in a world where cakes and drinks change her size and nothing follows ordinary rules. She meets the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and a short-tempered Queen.
9
Cold Comfort Farm
Stella Gibbons · 1932
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read” and “Whimsical”
Practical Flora Poste, newly orphaned, moves in with her gloomy rural relatives at Cold Comfort Farm. Armed with common sense and a strong will, she sets about tidying their tangled lives, one absurd cousin at a time, in a comic send-up of romantic country novels.
10
The Kamogawa Food Detectives
Hisashi Kashiwai · 2013
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read” and “Whimsical”
- Comfort Read
- Whimsical
At a small Kyoto diner, Nagare Kamogawa and his daughter quietly work as food detectives. Clients describe a dish they cannot forget, and the pair trace its ingredients and the people tied to it, recovering memories, old losses and small reconciliations along the way.
11
Stardust
Neil Gaiman · 1999
Similar atmosphere: “Whimsical”
A young man promises to retrieve a fallen star for the girl he loves and crosses a wall into the land of Faerie. There he finds the star is a woman pursued by witches and princes, and his errand becomes a journey of its own.
12
Beauty
Robin McKinley · 1978
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read”
- Comfort Read
A plain, bookish youngest daughter takes her father's place as a prisoner in an enchanted castle. As she comes to know the beast who lives there, she slowly learns that beauty and love are not what she was taught to expect.