The Pillars of the Earth has been hailed as one of the most triumphant novels of all time for decades now, and it deserves every acclaim it earned. “When things are simple, fewer mistakes are made. The most expensive part of a building is the mistakes.” If you have been following my reading journey this year, you would know that I’ve been struggling to encounter a book in the genres I tend to read—fantasy and science fiction—that blew me away. In fact, even though we’re in the month of July a...

7.2 MILLION STARS!Did I just read one of the most amazing books I have ever read? Yes, yes I did!I cannot say enough about this book, the story, the writing, the characters, etc. etc. etc. Everything is perfect! If someone had said to me, “Here is a 1000 page book about the building of a cathedral 1000 years ago in England” I probably would have fallen asleep before the end of their sentence. But, do not judge a book by its description – it is a 1000 page book about the building of a cathedral, ...

”He was mesmerized by the challenge of making soft, round shapes out of hard rock. The stone had a will of its own, and if he tried to make it do something it did not want to do, it would fight him, and his chisel would slip, or dig in too deeply, spoiling the shapes. But once he had got to know the lump of rock in front of him he could transform it.” There are so many memorable characters populating this epic novel that I would be hard pressed to even say who is the main character of this no...

“The most expensive part of building is the mistakes.” Look, it's difficult to explain exactly why I liked this book. Seriously, if you take a look at the blurb, note the 973 pages, and the fact it's a very long story about building a cathedral in Medieval England, you might think I've been smoking something. But for me - and I'm assuming for a large number of other readers - it was so damn compelling.I'm going to get the crap out of the way first - if you are sensitive to scenes of rape, DO ...

This book was so completely fantastic that I almost forgot the outside world existed when I was reading it. I’ve never be so emotionally invested in a story, as I was with this. It’s a rare book that does this to me. I think it’s because it follows the characters through such a large proportion of their lives, resulting in a large amount of intimacy and investment with them. Indeed, this novel spans a massive period of forty years and has 1000+ pages; this is no light reading; it is deep, emotiv...

This book was popular? As in a mini-phenomenon? Seriously? Am I being punked? Tell the truth--no one else read the book. It was all an elaborate media/pop culture scheme to trick me into reading this book. Please lie to me about this. I'm not sure I can go on living if I have to believe that this is what my fellow man is reading these days.My utter disdain for the book comes from many a source:A) It's 900 pages. Mind you, I'll read 900 pages, even 1,500 pages, if it's amazing. But it has to be a...

I devour books. That is my euphemism for being so obsessed that I can't put them down and live my life until I finish them. For shorter books, that's generally not a problem, but for the 974 page Pillars of the Earth...well, let's just say we ran out of food, my children clung to my legs asking for food, and the floors did not get vacuumed for a good five days while I whittled away at this book.CLIFF HANGER: This book is not a cliff-hanger-at-the-end-of-every-chapter kind of book, which makes it...

I know I'm going to be in the minority here, but this is truly one of the worst books I have ever read. I came so close to throwing the book across the room on several occasions, and ended up skipping through many pages just to get to the final and not too surprising finish. The characters were flat and lifeless and seemed to have been transplanted from the 20th century into medieval England. The book was rife with unnecessary profanity that in no way enhanced the storyline and obscene gratuitou...

I did not hate this book (hate would be too strong a word, and I can't hate it because I applaud the fact that Ken Follett attempted to write an epic novel). But I did not like it. I didn't like it from the start; his writing style hit me like a brick, but Jim thoroughly enjoyed the book that I kept trying to convince myself that I ought to give it a chance, hoping it would get better. When I was about 500 pages in, he saw how miserable I was and asked why I didn't just stop reading it, but at t...

This is seriously one of the worst books I've ever read. The only reason I finished the book is because I cannot put a book down once I start.The writing is terrible. The plotting may be dramatic, but I had almost zero interest in any of the characters; they seem to exist merely for events to happen to them, like actors in a disaster movie. Beyond that there seemed to be three characters in the book: Bad guy, good guy, and good victimized-yet-able-to -overcome girl.What got me most was: Ken Foll...