The Pillars of the Earth

by Ken Follett
973 pgs  (Kingsbridge trilogy #1)

Okay, I finally got around to reading Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth. I don't know how many times people have told me I needed to read it, but it's been more than a few. It seems like every time Follett came up in a conversation I was asked whether I had read it yet, and I always felt a little pang of embarrassment that I hadn't. Well, my days of feeling guilt are over.

I read "The Century Trilogy" as it was being published and I really enjoyed it, so I knew eventually I'd get around to reading his "Kingsbridge Series," of which this is book one. But I think I was putting it off for a couple reasons. First, the books are each doorstops at around 1,000 pages, so it requires a significant level of commitment to begin. Second, the summary on the cover flap and the description of it given by all those who recommended it doesn't make it sound all that interesting. Why would I care to read a book about the building of a cathedral in England in the middle of the 12th century?

Now I know. And to be fair to the book's publisher, and all those who tried to describe it to me, there's really no way to do the book justice in a synopsis (so I'm not going to try myself). It's so much more than a story about the building of a cathedral though (which, by the way, did turn out to be pretty interesting itself in its own right). The cathedral serves as the hub in a fascinating and compelling wheel of a story, which includes a cast of well-developed and engaging characters. I was sucked in by the plot from the very beginning, and it didn't let up until I had finished.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Edge of Eternity

by Ken Follett
1098 pgs  (The Century trilogy #3)

Throughout Ken Follett's The Century trilogy the lives of five different families were followed throughout the 20th century. The families were each from different countries: the U.S., England, Germany, France, and Wales, and each book focused on subsequent generations of those families as they experienced, and many times, influenced the historical events that took place during their lifetimes.

In book one, Fall of Giants they were the events leading up to and including the First World War that Follett chronicles. In book two Winter of the World, they were the events leading up to and including the Second World War. In this concluding installment, the third generation of each family witnesses and experiences each of the major events in the last half of the century. Those events include the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Wall, the civil rights movement, and the assassinations of JFK, his brother "Bobby" and Martin Luther King Jr.

These were the first books by Ken Follett that I read and what I was most impressed with was the expert way in which he mapped out the lives of three generations of his five families and used their lives to tell the story of arguably the most eventful and influential century to date. He seamlessly intertwines the lives of his fictitious characters with the lives of the historical figures of their time. It really was an impressive feat that I doubt many other writers could have pulled off.

Now I have more than just glowing praise for the trilogy and this final book in particular. I do have a gripe that's worth mentioning--the sex. This final book was almost 1100 pages long, and I'm guessing that about 200 of those pages detailed the sexual activities of the characters. Now I don't think I would be considered a prude when it comes to the books I read by any one's standards, but the amount of sex in this book was a little ridiculous. It got to the point when I read 50 or so pages without a sex scene that I knew one must be coming shortly.

That being said, the book, and the series as a whole, is fantastic. It's entertaining and informative. By the time I finished it, I felt like I had a deeper appreciation for the events of the century I grew up in and it made me wish I had paid a little more attention during the World History classes I took in school.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Winter of the World

by Ken Follett
938 pgs.  (Century trilogy #2)

A couple of years ago I read my first Ken Follett book Fall of Giants, and I loved it. It's the first book in his "Century" trilogy and it follows the lives of five families, each from different key countries in the world during World War I and the Russian Revolution. In Winter of the World Follett picks things up a few years later and this time tells the story of the lives of the next generation of those same families beginning with the events leading up to World War II and ending with the start of the Cold War.

I really enjoyed this book; as much, if not more than I did the first one. Follett does an excellent job of using the lives of these families to describe what it would have been like to live during such a pivotal and historical time. He describes life in Germany during Hitler and the Nazi Party's control, London during the blitz, as bombs were dropped nightly for months at a time, and Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941.

Once again I am amazed at the level of research Follett is doing in order to write these books. He doesn't just use historical events to tell his story, he inserts his characters into those events. They interact with historical figures like Churchill and FDR. They work on developing a world-changing type of bomb. And they help tell the story of history in an entertaining, compelling, and enlightening way.

At the end of next year Follett will complete his trilogy with Edge of Eternity. I'm looking forward to it and am confident it won't disappoint.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Fall of Giants

by Ken Follett
985 pgs  (The Century trilogy #1)

This is the first of Ken Follett's books that I've read, so I don't know how it compares to his earlier ones. But if they're anything like his latest, I've got a lot of catching up to do. This is the first of three books that Follett will write to complete his trilogy and based on this first one, I'm anxiously awaiting the next volume.

With Fall of Giants Follett provides a fascinating perspective of world events that took place during roughly the first 25 years of the 20th Century. The book's main characters, (and there are many) are spread out accross the globe - America, Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and Russia. These characters' lives intersect with each other in compelling ways as the world events transpire that bring about World War I.

In addition to the fictional characters, real life characters from the time period are included - Woodrow Wilson, Vladimir Lenin, and Winston Churchill to name just a few. Follett does a fantastic job of providing an insight into their lives by frequently using things that they said in real life.

If I didn't make it clear already, I really enjoyed this book. It has the same feel and depth as books that I've read by Dickens and Dostoevsky. It reads like classic literature. It was both entertaining as well as educational. It made me want to read non-fictional accounts of the time period along with the biographies of its pivotal players.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★