I guess with all the hype, I expected more. At times it was a very boring read.

I couldn't believe how uncreative this story was. After hearing gushing praise from you know who I expected something better...much better. I found this story boring and predictable. I'm offended when an author can't create drama in a female story line other than repeatedly raping her. It doesn't pass as depth, drama or creative...and it doesn't get a free pass from this reader. Don't bother waiting for it to get better.

When I finally came to the conclusion that I was to read the Pillars of the Earth for my summer reading, I was rather skeptical that a near thousand page book, dealing with the construction of a cathedral could keep me inspired enough to read it. I was ineffably mistaken.

Ken Follet introduces the book in a scene that feels abruptly tossed at us, but is nevertheless a phenomenal foundation to the plot. Follet chooses to write the chapters, deviating from character to character. By the time you finish the first chapter, your enticed by one of the main characters, Tom. You simply cannot wait to know what follows the end of chapter, so naturally you'll eagerly begin to read the subsequent chapter and notice that the perspective has changed to another character. "What's this?" I couldn't help thinking angrily. I continued turning the pages, impatiently waiting for mention of the character that I just formed a bond with, and to my surprise, I quickly realized the current character is just as eloquent written and genuinely admirable as the previous. Follet uses this tactic throughout the novel that you ultimately come to understand and appreciate all the characters on some deep level, from Tom to Prior Phillip, William of Hamley, Aliena, Jack, Richard, Ellen, and Waleran Bigod.

The plot also becomes as gratifying in its authenticity as it's characters. The beautifully vivid world of 12th Century England becomes as genuine as today's society is to us. After reading a copious number of pages, it takes some effort to snap back to our 21th century society. Follet balances, although some may argue, the unfortunate events and the elations of the novel perfectly. It's the sorrows that characters experience that give us such powerful, jovial feeling when something finally goes right. Although it stands as the basis of the novel, the Cathedral of Kingsbridge stands for so much more. It's what continuously caused admiration and despair, till Jack's motivational ardor constructed the most magnificent cathedral in all of England.

The only negative thing that I can bring up about the novel is the incessant malevolent acts Bishop Waleran commits. His never ending plots to destroy Prior Phillip, although understandable to some level, become tiring by the last 20 pages of the book. I understand it as his personality, but it's terribly infuriating when the man simply won't quit. All the better I suppose, for the satisfaction of the conclusion.

Far from the trite novel that I was expecting, The Pillars of the Earth has actually given me insight on certain inscrutable things about life. I will inevitably, I'd think, always admire the characters and words descended me within another world. This truly is epic.

I'm only part way into reading this book - but it's one of those that I can't put down. Not only is it well written, but it is also a fascinating study of the period and a well developed cast of characters. I'm thoroughly enjoying Pillars of the Earth.

I really enjoy listening to audio books to and from work and was really looking forward to this one. I had asked for it at Christmas because there were so many rave reviews, it was a longer book and this would keep me involved for some time. There were so many times I almost gave up on the book and listening to the last CD, I realized how relieved I was to be done with it. Although there was finally some positive experiences for the characters towards the last remaining quarter of the book, the reader is in for a long haul of poorly developed characters that had no depth and the brutalization of them throughout their history. I couldnt fall in love with any of the them, couldnt feel nor sympathize with any of their passions or pursuits, basically had a hard time caring. It is really hard to know about a character who answers a question with "Yes", but it is described as saying Yes in an elaborate way... If I were playing a drinking game like "High Bob" that we played many years ago in college, I would have ample opportunities for a swig if we took a gulp every time a charater thought to themselves "and he/she realized she was about to die". GEEEEZZZZ! I was absolutely put off by the very brutal and violant acts that were played out in such detail... unfortunately, this is the only place where details seemed to be so graphic. Maybe this is unfair. There is some detail with building the church. But I was left thinking...so who cares? Unless you can already visualize what it takes to build a church, the dragged out details are lost on you.

I read this book first as an older teenager/early twenties and loved it. Since then I have mentioned it as one of my favorites. However, I recently thought to re-read it some 15 years later.
While it remains a wonderful story, well told and vast in its epic scope, it hasn't worn the years as well as I would have hoped. I continue to recommend it to those who, like me, love historical fiction, but I don't think I'll include in on my favorites list any longer. It is overly long and the last part seems unnecessary. Some things are not terribly well expained and some in far too much detail. It retains through-out a twentieth century version of history feel to it. However, I remain a fan of the book and of Follett.

This is a good depiction of every day life for a myriad of characters and social classes in England. The book touches on aristocracy, union labor, clergy, kings and vassals, battle life, locally harvested resources such as a quarry, village life, clergy hierarchy/currpution, and basic trade markets.

The book also touched on these themes: relationships between spouses, social acceptance of violence, law enforcement, money lending and feudal requirements, succession and a tug of war between political factions and monarchs.

The large cast of characters have clear, realistic and common motives- all intertwining. The characters are real in their flaws, failures, successes and goals. The virtuous characters have long journeys of self realization. The self involved characters experience their own epiphanies- creating their own anguish. But the book doesn't wrap up happily ever after which is refreshing.

WHILE ALL THIS IS GOING ON... the architectural and structural details are woven in successfully. As you continue to read you begin to understand weight loads, buttresses, the integration of Moorish architecture based upon Geometries. This theme may parallel the characters own weight loads.

I want to stress that the book is an ongoing, epic, emotional voyage. Often touching on dark realistic elements of common life. It is an investment to read this book.

Personally, it was book of interest but difficult to continue and push toward it's conclusion. Sluggish with detail at times, the historical value kept me plugging away until I finished the book with a relieved sigh. It has to be a book you are in the mood for... Happy Reading.

I picked this up at the library and read the first page out loud to my hubby and kids. I thought it was soooooo impressive that I was sure I'd love it. If you read the first page (you can do this online) and you love it, I promise, it's worth your time. If you don't love the first page, you may not love it.

It's long, yes. It's also worth it. You won't read a chapter and wonder why it dragged out, hoping it 'came back around' later. It's wonderful. All of it.

I will say that there are rape scenes which normally I find pointless and uncomfortable and evil. There is nothing worthless or pointless in this book. It all comes around, long before it ends. And even in the end, its worth the journey.

I recommend this book to a lot of folks. I loved it and wish I could read it for the first time again.

This applies to both "Pillars" and its sequel, "Ends of the Earth." I won't repeat much of what I've read in many of the other reviews, but just say that an atheist/agnostic writing a book like this is like a man whose never seen an elephant trying to describe one. Follett puts the tail where the trunk should be and vice versa just because that would "make sense" to someone who has never seen an elephant. His characters are "works" driven and are hoping what they are doing will please God and earn his favor -- if they really care about God at all. There's nothing about grace and little about faith. I guess you can't write about something you don't understand. It certainly makes little sense to a non-believer. (I was once one, so I know.)

Tit 3:4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared,
5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

An interesting read but if you want to learn something about Christianity, this is not the book. You will learn a lot about the author's perception of Christianity.

I will add to the comments about the gratuitous sex. Not only does it stop the narrative of the book in its tracks, but it is repetitive and lacks imagination. All of the characters seem to have sex in exactly the same way, with the exception of the violence.

I came to this book because it was an Oprah Book Club selection and her choices have been hit or miss over the years for me. This one, a hit. I still can't get over how Follett manages to make the intricate details of building a cathedral interesting and not boring. Intermixing it with the historical drama helps. This book is filled with a wonderful, beautifully written story of great characters. I consider it a must read!

"The Pillars of the Earth" is everything you would expect from a thriller writer turned historical fiction writer - a gripping story, but lacking when it came to prose. I had trouble taking the book seriously when phrases such as "What a woman!" came up in the text. The modern words and names belied the novel's antiquity, which I can imagine helped some readers with accessibility - it was rather a turn-off for me. Still, such a complex and satisfying narrative deserves four stars.

Bought it for my book club. Wasn't sure if I'd like it based on initial review, but I was hooked after the first few pages. Loved all the characters and story lines. Couldn't wait to see what would happen next. Overly detailed on the architecture, but I did learn an appreciation of beautiful churches.

Kindle Version -

Organization is good, chapter navigation is easy. Illustrations were present and as good as they get on the Kindle - decently clear but very small.

Narrative -

This book is very slow for about the first 5 chapters and then the pace really picks up. It is well written, the characterizations are excellent, and the pace - once you're further into the book - is fast enough to keep you reading much longer than you intended [one more chapter and THEN I'm going to bed...okay, just a few more pages... and suddenly it's 3AM and you're wondering how you're going to function at work the next day... and STILL you only put it down grudgingly].

I really enjoyed the architectural detail, and the historical detail - whether or not perfectly correct - certainly helped to set the tone and give the reader a better feel for the characters and their struggles.

It has far murkier characters than one would expect: The good guys are quite flawed - some of them to the extent that if they weren't on the side of the good guys they would be bad guys. The bad guys - well they are still nearly entirely 'evil'.

The only tough part about the book is that given it's length and the number of characters... when minor characters are re-introduced later in the story you have to go back to figure out who they are and how they figured in to begin with. In addition the characterizations of the minor characters are somewhat fluid - as though the author didn't know which side they were going to fall on until much later than they were introduced into the story.

Other -

The book is long so you need to pay attention and/or use bookmarks if you plan to jump around a bit.

Summary -

Overall I can see why the book has had such a long and successful shelf-life.

I read this book long before it was popularized by Oprah. If she had already endorsed it back then, I would have stayed away from it because I never seem to agree with her selections. I picked it up at a bookstore on a week-long trip to Tahoe, at the recommendation of the owner.
I have no problem delving into long books when the substance is necessary to the plot, but this book dragged on....and on...and on. There were several instances where I could have sworn I read the exact same paragraph several hundred pages before. Where was the editor on this one??
The characters were largely two dimensional. Tom Builder was utterly unlikeable. The building of the cathedrals may be interesting if you enjoy architecture, but far too technical for this reader.
But the thing that put me off of this book the most was the sex (not consensual sex, but violent rape) and violence. I'm not a prude, but the descriptions in this book were purely nauseating. Even several years later, I'm still sickened by the thought of those images. The graphic nature was completely unnecessary, and could easily have been moved on from sooner while still getting the point across.
I only finished this book because I didn't have another to read while I was sitting on the beach for a week, but I have never been so happy to put a book down.

The story unfolds in a 30+ year span and you really get to know and like -and dislike- the characters. Unfortunately it has several very unnecesary details on sex and violence...

no one understands the human element better than Ken Follett. What a great story.

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett is a riveting medieval saga of good and evil. In the edition that I read, it includes a new forward that explains how Follett came to write a novel so different from his unusual thrillers. This monster novel (at 973 pages) became a best-seller, primarily through word of mouth.

Pillars of the Earth begins in 1135 in fictional Kingsbridge, England. Kingsbridge is run by the monks of Kingsbridge Priory and is the seat of the local bishop. Two men find their fates connected in Kingsbridge. The young Prior Philip wants to turn around the financially failing priority. And master-builder Tom wants to feed his family and build the most magnificent cathedral in all of England. These two are continually thwarted in their efforts by jealous monks, a self-serving bishop and one of the most evil men in all literature--Earl William Hamleigh. The fates of the priory are also affected by the unstable political situation brought on by years of civil war. You will cheer for the little hamlet of Kingsbridge as it overcomes one setback after another.

This book is good at showing how people went about daily living in medieval times. These characters took baths twice a year, ate bread and ale for meals, and often shared a one-room house with their animals. As King Stephen and Queen Maud (Matilda in real life) battle for the throne, those sitting on the throne vie with the Roman Catholic Church for power. All of these struggles have a trickle-down effect on Kingsbridge. This is a period of history (1135-1174) with which I'm not very familiar. This made it even more interesting for me. One major detraction I found is that while I'm familiar with church-terms (narthex, nave, transept, crossing, chancel, crypt, and sacristy), I am sure that many readers are not. However, I am not familiar with many of the architectural terms. I can't tell you the difference between a groined vault, a barrel vault or a rib-vault. I also couldn't point out a buttress on a building. Diagrams and illustrations of these things would have been extremely helpful in visualizing the building of the cathedral.

I found Pillars of the Earth to be a powerful, moving and riveting story and it read much quicker than I thought. I am looking forward to reading Follett's new best-selling sequel, The Ends of the Earth.

I managed to get through this book but just barely. It was recommended to me by my daughter who said it was wonderful. I almost put it away numerous times because it was so poorly written that I just couldn't get into the characters. I love to read a book where I am consumed by the story and the characters so much that they become a part of my life and I feel a great loss when the final page is read. Not Pillars!! NO! The language of the book was definitely 20th Century not 12th Century and the characters never came alive for me. I still don't know why I finished the book. Unnecessary graphic sex and cruelty. Mean and nasty. Gore and brutality to animals thrown in for shock. I understood after the first 2-3 rapes what this was about and I really became disgusted when it was repeated so many times. Why was there so much written about sex throughout. It just didn't belong. I felt dirty because it didn't follow the story or even relate to what might have been in the 12th Century. I don't know how anyone could say this was historical. Where is it historically accurate? The murder of Thomas Becket thrown in at the end? Don't waste time reading this book - it just never comes alive.

Finishing this book is like parting with a best friend. The feeling I had was like when someone new moves into your neighborhood into the house next to yours. You develop a bond over time and are happy in your heart when they are out watering the lawn and you pull up into your driveway after a long annoying day at work. The person transports you so you forget about all the nagging things that happened in your day. The world you are in is medieval. Knights with clanging armor ride pass you on horseback. But equally as striking as the knights are the people in the village. You hear stories of love and you see the people's determination to not be extinguished by the greed and lust perpetrated by the earl. Secretly in your heart, you want to see the prior of Kingsbridge, a man named Philip, get his wishes, and build his cathedral. After all he works so hard. And you hear news one day, that your beloved neighbor is moving. Sadly, you say goodbye. May the good memory live on.

First, I historically have really enjoyed Follett's work. Second, I love history and that includes historical fiction. Third, I'm not afraid of long books so long as they hold my interest.

I had a real hard time getting into this book. The first quarter was plodding, the next two quarters were very, very good and the last quarter was unnecessary. This book could have easily been 700 pages long (275 less than it is) and have actually been the better for it. I didn't need the last quarter of that book for anything. The author had done a good job up until then in moving the story along. Why the need to bring in Thomas Becket? To make the final point about the tug-o-war between the Church and government? That point was well made way before that episode...although I have to admit the depiction of Becket's assassination was well-done.

I also have to admit that I did grow attached to many of the characters I was supposed to be attached to and experienced some real sadness or shock at some of the events. Then again, since the story took place in the 12th century, I had pretty much figured out that everyone dies at the end.

After so many episodes, I already was familiar enough with the cruelty of the villains, the goodness of the heroes and heroines and more of it seemed to be redundant and/or gratuitous. The later events were very predictable and you could see them coming a mile away.

The book leaves me with no desire to read the "sequel".

After having read this long, but thoroughly enjoyable book, I managed to experience just about every emotion a human can feel. It's a literary work of art. Enjoy!

Couldn't put the book down once I started reading it. Loved the characters, loved the building of the Cathedral and I particularly liked how Follet brought the rediscovery of ancient Greek texts such as Euclid into the story. So many things I liked about the book. Sure there was plenty of sex and violence, the story was set in the 12th century after all. Plus I assume we're all adults here so I think we should be able to deal with it. For those who don't like violence and sex in their fiction I would keep clear of this book, that will save me having to read the ridiculous negative reviews.

Some of Oprah's book club books are good and some are bad, but this was wonderful. It was really long but not once did I ever look ahead to see how many pages were left so I could go on to my next book. I am amazed that someone can write like this. There is so much detail and character development. You can picture yourself in various towns. You can see everything in your mind as it is portrayed in the book. There is a lot of despair and sorrow in this story. I would recommend it to anyone who has the patience and time to read such a long book.

An excellent read. I found it difficult to put down. Even through its many pages I found it impelling and not at all too long. However, because of its weight I had to prop the book on my lap on top of a pillow. I consider it a must read.

I really like this book, even though I would agree it is certainly not Proust. Where the character development fails, there is a compelling storyline that kept me interested beyond the last pages.

Pillars is a long book but very good. Not your usual Ken Follett, had I not known better would have thought he had a ghost writer here. I love his works but this is so different. It has to be a good read to keep me going over 900 pages. I think you will like it.

This is one of the best books I've ever read. The characters are engrossing. The history is interesting. I read it in less than a week. If only all books were this good...

Expecting a phenomenal read, I started this book months ago. The very first chapters were a good read and I anticipated that the story would break off into different paths, like branches on a tree; and that they would somehow converge as the tale unfolded. While I recognized writing expertise, there were, often times, foolish and childlike verbiage, what I might term 'baby sentences.' The story eventually unfolds from one disaster, evil character, hardship, persecution, greed, power seeker, rape and pillage...to another. The worse characters keep reappearing again and again, to be trusted again and again, feared again and again, or to be indulged again and again to perform their nasty purposes. Taking license with the artistry of Rube Goldberg, one horror leads to another with a short respite of heaven thrown in every so often, to once again turn into another horror as the balances swing, the tables turn and the levels become unlevelled. I had to push through the 970 odd pages.
The strange part of it....while I thought the book rambled on as this review seems to in order to relate my reading experience....I believe it would make a very popular and enjoyable mini series...uh...that might have one too many episodes!

Almost at 1,000 pages, this book sure is a brick. But what an amazing brick it is! The story captivated me for some reason...and apparently, Oprah likes it too.

Amazing book. Extremely engrossing, although the first 100 pages are slower than most, the next 800+ pages fly by.

I originally read The Pillars of the Earth when it was published in 1989. I enjoyed it at the time. I was 14.

More recently I had heard about the sequel and decided it was time to re-read the original beforehand. Wow. I'm having the hardest time forcing myself to get through it -- like some of the other reviewers mentioned I'm scanning the chapters for plot points to avoid the misery of wading through the writing. It's pulpy, the characters are one-dimensional, the prose is ponderous, and *everything* is laid out for the reader. The plot is interesting, but not novel. It's incredibly overrated, and I recommend you skip this one.

This book was a true pleasure to read. And I enjoyed reading it on my Kindle as well. I am now reading Ken Follet's sequal to this book, which takes place several hundred years later. I give it 5 stars.

I have read several of Ken Follett's books, and this one is pure yack. My opinion is that it was ghost written. It's disjointed, contrived, wandering, puerile and, as a result, almost unreadable. I've enjoyed his other books, but this one is junk. It's as though a few basic ideas and a lot of arcane words (repetitively used) were fed into a computer program and spat back out. Forget the sequel. Don't waste your money on either book...sorry, Ken, but this one is way below par.

I received this book as a gift, and I was not terribly impressed with it at first. With some encouragement from the gift-giver, I continued on. The story was lovely, and it was worth the almost 1,000 pages of effort. It is an informed and well-written story with some very interesting characters. There are some great morality points, too. You have your standard bibilical allusion winding through the novel. Follet was careful, though, to make it subtle, and I appreciated that. It would have been too easy to tell a Sunday school Bible lesson while talking about the building of a cathedral.
Having read the book, I am glad that I persevered, but I had some serious problems with this book, too. First, there are some really graphic scenes of sex and violence that just were not necessary. Of course, this book is about a period of time in 12th Century England called "the Anarchy," which saw its fair share of graphic scenes. I was very disturbed by the scenes, though, and I wish the author had a more graceful way of writing them. I think Follett went a little overboard with the architectural descriptions, too. I believe he probably was greatly inspired by the cathedrals he saw while doing research for the novel and wanted to share it with his readers. That is obvious with in the verbosity of his descriptions. I couldn't visualize what he was describing, though, so I was lost in much of the master builder's musings over his designs. Overall, the characters were good. It seems, though, that Follett spent a great deal of time thinking about his heroes and left the rest to develop themselves. The women in the novel are especially odd to me. They are your basic "strong women" as imagined by a male writer. I have never met a woman like Follett describes. I doubt he has either, but it seems like he wants to. The evil characters are also too much. One example is the man who can't get aroused unless he is with a child and only if he hurts her. It is just too easy to hate a character like that. Once again, I wish there had been more grace.
Having said that, I think there are some great strengths to the book, too. Although the characters are at times too much to be believed, I loved the fact that we were able to watch them grow, learn, and age. We watch their lives over the course of almost 40 years, and we experience with them all the great events of their lives. Follett did a good job with that. In fact, I think he wrote the characters better as they aged. I also loved the twisting and turning the story takes. So as not to give anything away, I will only say that the characters all experience some ups and downs in their lives. Just when you think Follett has said all he could say, a new story begins. Still, he connects them seamlessly. My favorite part of the story is the ending. I sometimes get very angry with authors of long books who write anticlimactic endings. This is not one of those.
If you are willing to give this book some time and effort, it is really an enjoyable read and an interesting look at possibly the most turbulent time in English history.

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!!! MUST READ, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THAT TIME PERIOD AND ARE A FAN OF CATHEDRAL ARCHITECTURE. PLUS SO MUCH HOT AND STEAMY ROMANCE!

I was not excited at all to read this 970 page tome, but a friend loaned it to me and I have to return it in a couple of weeks.

This is not a fast read for me (too many twists and turns), but it is a great book. The characters are interesting and compelling and the building process is fascinating.

I will say that the writing style took some getting used to, but by page 100, I was good to go.

It's a great book.

I'll admit that the story is captivating at the start. But after a few hundred pages, I couldn't help myself from rolling my eyes as the story line was so contrived. Fun read and even entertaining, but definitely not a book of ANY literal value... it was what I call a mindless-guilty-pleasure.

To top it off I realized that around page 500, the author was clueless as to how to end it.

So to do as Follett writes (that is to repeat myself in a different context): 1) the book was entertaining but in a soap opera way not in a must-read literal way AND 2) if it ended shortly after the 500 page mark it would have been more entertaining than annoying.

This might be of note to some people, but reading Follett reminded me of a Philippa Gregory book (although a notch higher). So if you like her, than you will most likely love this author too.

Now this part hasn't a thing to do with the book but rather an irration that I have when I read reviews... "Share Your Opinion" does not mean summarize the story... Duh.

Do not read this if you enjoy good writing. This "novel" is a piece of cheap sensationalism.

This book is very good at the beginning, and I couldn't put it down when I first started reading it. The descriptions of medieval life and mystery at the beginning are very interesting. Here are the problems that caused me to give this book two stars instead of the four it could have easily gotten:

This is a very long book, and I get the feeling that the author had to come up with filler to meet some length goal he had. There is a lot of redundancy in the book, where he explains technical details about things like masonry repeatedly. Also, there seem to be random, graphic sex scenes which become more and more frequent in the latter half of the book. Most of them added nothing to the plot, and I'm not sure if they were simply filler, a marketing ploy, or a result of the author just wanting to write about sex. I couldn't finish the book because the last hundred or two pages got too boring and started to resemble a harlequin soft-core porn novel. It's as if he ran out of fresh ideas when the book neared completion and started to substitute real content with sex scenes.

There are also some problems with the characters. The main character at the beginning, for instance; the author makes it very clear that this man is deeply in love with his wife, and when she dies, he's crushed-- but then has sex with a woman he just met less than 24 hours after burying his wife. It doesn't make sense when you drastically change a character's values like that, and again, it seems as though the author was overeager to write about sex. It's a trend I've noticed in a lot of books these days. Also (and you'll see what I mean if you read the book), some of the other characters are introduced as truly good people, and then do some truly reprehensible things and have no regrets about it. It doesn't make sense. There's no consistency to most of the characters in this book. In fact, my favorite characters were the villains, because I could at least count on them to be consistently villainous, whereas I never knew what the "good" characters were going to do next.

Two out of five. Not worth your money.

This book is redundant beyond belief. Why did the author feel compelled to tell us over and over again what we just read. Also, I found three major type errors. Didn't anyone edit this thing? The four page + rape scene was pointless, graphic and added nothing to the story or character. I struggled to even finish the book. I skipped the beginning of each chapter because of the repetition. The characters were hollow and unbelievable, especially the "villan".

When my book club chose "The Pillars of The Earth" I was looking forward to reading this well-reviewed book. Unfortunately, this book is sloppily written and often redundant. The story might be a good one, but it continually gets lost in the minutia. Some characters are well-developed, while others border on being over-developed, and it could use a good editing to bring the wordiness under control.

Yes I read the whole thing and I kind of don't know why. the first 3/4 of it are ok and then the ending was just too short. It seemed like the story crashed.

over 900 pages & I could not put it down, nor did I ever want it to end. A different Ken Follett read, middle ages,12th century, historical fiction not to be missed

over 900 pages & I could not put it down, nor did I ever want it to end. A different Ken Follett read, middle ages,12th century, historical fiction not to be missed

i dont know why this book is getting negative reviews. This book will keep you flipping the pages and not wanting to stop reading. It is good from the first word to the last. There is not one boring part is this entire novel unlike other books of this length.

I asked for this book for Christmas 2007 because I wanted to read it so bad. It was painful to try to finish it. I have not read this author before, but have heard very good things about him. Needless to say I will probably not consider him a favorite. I wanted so much to like this book but I was very, very disappointed.

I asked for this book for Christmas 2007 because I wanted to read it so bad. It was painful to try to finish it. I have not read this author before, but have heard very good things about him. Needless to say I will probably not consider him a favorite. I wanted so much to like this book but I was very, very disappointed.

My husband is a picky reader and not alot of fiction appeals to him. This book has got him. I can't wait to get it after him

My husband is a picky reader and not alot of fiction appeals to him. This book has got him. I can't wait to get it after him

This is a fabulous book of over 1000 pages but don't be daunted by the size of it. Many authors would have made this into a trilogy costing the reader 3 x $20.00 but this single book is very good value for money. The story follows three or four main groups of people through around fifty years of their lives with never a dull moment. It's a great reminder of how our ancestors used to live and how Medieval Britain used to be a savage, tribal country with much lawlessness. The story smoothly flows between monasteries, castles and the building of a cathedral. Although monks play a large part I certainly wouldn't say it is a religious book, on the contrary, it shows deviousness and politics between the monasteries and the people who run them. This book is a great find and very much look forward to reading the next book set in Kingsbridge - World Without End.