# The SBHonline Community Daily > Books, Movies, and TV >  >  Read Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth in St. Barts and now halfway through his sequel (written 20 years later, set in period 200 years later) World Without End. Great historical novels that tell so

## JEK

Read Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth in St. Barts and now halfway through his sequel (written 20 years later, set in period 200 years later) World Without End. Great historical novels that tell so much about the time period in rich detail. Thanks to the Kindle I can tote these tomes around as they are each over 1000 pages. Number 15 on NYT bestsellers and 22 weeks on the list.

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## MIke R

havent read it but I have to order it every week...its been a  good one

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## andynap

I loved anything Follet wrote and was stunned when I read Pillars when it first came out- it was as far from any spy story as you could get- and sensational. The movie would be too hard to make I thought.

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## JEK

> I loved anything Follet wrote and was stunned when I read Pillars when it first came out- it was as far from any spy story as you could get- and sensational. The movie would be too hard to make I thought.



The back story:
*
The Pillars of the Earth*

In a time of civil war, famine and religious strife, there rises a magnificent Cathedral in Kingsbridge. Against this backdrop, lives entwine: Tom, the master builder, Aliena, the noblewoman, Philip, the prior of Kingsbridge, Jack, the artist in stone and Ellen, the woman from the forest who casts a curse. At once, this is a sensuous and enduring love story and an epic that shines with the fierce spirit of a passionate age.

Ken's View

This is my most popular book. It still sells about 100,000 copies a year in paperback in the US, it was number one in the UK and Italy and it was on the German best seller list for six years. It's overwhelmingly the book that readers talk to me about when I meet them in bookshops. It's becoming a cult.

When I started writing, back in the early Seventies, I found I had no vocabulary for describing buildings. I read a couple of books on architecture and developed an interest in cathedrals. I became a bit of a train spotter on the subject. I would go to a town, like Lincoln or Winchester, check into a hotel and spend a couple of days looking around the cathedral and learning about it. Before too long, it occurred to me to channel this enthusiasm into a novel.

When I started talking about the idea, some of my friends were quite shocked. They said, "you know, you've had a lot of success with these thrillers, are you sure you want to write about building a church?".

However, those of my friends who are writers saw immediately how the building of the church would be the spine of the story and the focus for the lives of all the characters. I knew it had to be a long book. It took at least thirty years to build a cathedral and most took longer because they would run out of money, or be attacked or invaded. So the story covers the entire lives of the main characters.

Writing Pillars of the Earth was exhausting. It is much more difficult to write one book of 400,000 words than three or four shorter books because you have to keep making up more and more stuff about the same people. Pillars of the Earth took me three years and three months and towards the end I was working Saturdays and Sundays because I thought I was never going to get it finished.

My publishers were a little nervous about such a very unlikely subject but paradoxically, it is my most popular book. It's also the book I'm most proud of. It recreates, quite vividly, the entire life of the village and the people who live there. You feel you know the place and the people as intimately as if you yourself were living there in the middle ages.
*
 World Without End*

The No. 1 New York Times best-seller.

On the day after Halloween, in the year 1327, four children slip away from the cathedral city of Kingsbridge. They are a thief, a bully, a boy genius and a girl who wants to be a doctor. In the forest they see two men killed.

As adults, their lives will be braided together by ambition, love, greed and revenge. They will see prosperity and famine, plague and war. One boy will travel the world but come home in the end; the other will be a powerful, corrupt nobleman. One girl will defy the might of the medieval church; the other will pursue an impossible love. And always they will live under the long shadow of the unexplained killing they witnessed on that fateful childhood day.

World Without End is the sequel to The Pillars of the Earth. However, it doesn

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## MIke R

people who love Follett love this too...and it has been camped on the best seller list for months

http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/cormacmccarthy/

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## JEK

Finished it last night and nearly burned the Kindle up on the last day. Saw this note on Amazon and it looks like they are finally catching up with demand.

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## llyon

Kindle looks so interesting but seems so limiting, esp in light of the price of the actual machine and then the price of the books.

1. You can't pass a book on to a friend or family member when you're through.
2. What would the sand and salt do to it at the beach?
3. How easy is it to read outdoors in bright sunlight?

If it were MUCH cheaper on both counts it would be great for our SBH trips instead of hauling multiple books (and therefore not being able to take carry on only) but it has some serious limitations, IMHO.

PS - I also buy actual CD's to put on my computer and Ipod so that if something crashes I don't have to re-purchase something that I actually already own.

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## JEK

> Kindle looks so interesting but seems so limiting, esp in light of the price of the actual machine and then the price of the books.
> 
> 1. You can't pass a book on to a friend or family member when you're through.
> 2. What would the sand and salt do to it at the beach?
> 3. How easy is it to read outdoors in bright sunlight?
> 
> If it were MUCH cheaper on both counts it would be great for our SBH trips instead of hauling multiple books (and therefore not being able to take carry on only) but it has some serious limitations, IMHO.
> 
> PS - I also buy actual CD's to put on my computer and Ipod so that if something crashes I don't have to re-purchase something that I actually already own.



True you can't pass the book on, but they are much, much cheaper.  We read in on the beach every day without any problem. The device needs ambient light to read (not back lit)and it is better in bright sunlight than in shade, just like a book.  I would have never read the two Follett books if I had to carry them in hardback. Once you buy the Kindle book it resides on Amazon and you can delete from the Kindle and then download at will if you desire. I think it is the only way to go for travelers.

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## andynap

John- I think the Follet books are now in paperback- esp. the first one. :)

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## JEK

> John- I think the Follet books are now in paperback- esp. the first one. :)



They still weigh a ton . . .

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## MIke R

> John- I think the Follet books are now in paperback- esp. the first one. :)



they are in paper back....both MassMarket format ( the small paperback) and Trade Publications format ( the bigger size paperback publishers created to boost bookstore margins...LOL)

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## KevinS

[/quote] They still weigh a ton . . . 

[/quote]

True.  But I still buy and read paper books.  I bought Pillars of the Earth for my upcoming Vegas trip.  976 pages, 2 lbs, $12.00, and the batteries won't run out.

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## andynap

Just finished World Without End- fabulous- what characters. I wonder how much of the environs, building and manufacturing processes are true for that period.

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## JEK

> Just finished World Without End- fabulous- what characters. I wonder how much of the environs, building and manufacturing processes are true for that period.



According to his website, he did extensive research on the period to include building, the place of women in business and the business themselves.

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## Dennis

Does one need to read "Pillars" before "World"?

I'm 48 and may only have enough time for one...

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## MIke R

no...not really....it is a sequel but like Dan Browns Angels and Demons and DaVinci code...it really doesnt matter what order you read them

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## JEK

> Does one need to read "Pillars" before "World"?
> 
> I'm 48 and may only have enough time for one...




All things being equal I would read them as written, much better story telling that way.

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## andynap

> Does one need to read "Pillars" before "World"?
> 
> I'm 48 and may only have enough time for one...



Dennis- altho each stands on its own Pillars lays the foundation for the next book- the characters, etc- it also is in a time period before World so you get the proper context and understanding of what it was like in the 13th and 14th century.

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## Dennis

> Does one need to read "Pillars" before "World"?
> 
> I'm 48 and may only have enough time for one... 
> 
> 
> 
> Dennis- altho each stands on its own Pillars lays the foundation for the next book- the characters, etc- it also is in a time period before World so you get the proper context and understanding of what it was like in the 13th and 14th century.



Does the book jibe with your childhood recollections of the period?

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## JEK

> Does the book jibe with your childhood recollections of the period?



Den, that was better than a dog roasting  pic :-)

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## Dennis

> Does the book jibe with your childhood recollections of the period? 
> 
> 
> 
> Den, that was better than a dog roasting  pic :-)



I'm becoming more sensitive...to the dog.

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## andynap

> Does the book jibe with your childhood recollections of the period? 
> 
> 
> 
> Den, that was better than a dog roasting  pic :-) 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm becoming more sensitive...to the dog.



That's the last time. I thought I was being helpful-  I should know better

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