Monday, October 15, 2007

Finally! The Saga Continues

My all time favorite book is Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett. An odd choice, I know, but I just love it. I love how epic it is, how you really get to know and love or hate the characters. I also have always like the time period. This book was assigned as the summer reading at the end of my junior year of highschool to be studied when we returned as seniors. When we received our copies of the paperback from our English teachers they already had huge chunks of text blacked out with a sharpie. I was furious - how dare they require reading and then censor it. I raised a fuss, encouraging everyone to fight and go to at least go out and buy an uncensored version. In the end I didn't go back for my senior year, I finished my required credits that summer, but I still read the book. I've re-read it every summer since. I'm oh so familiar with Prior Philip, the Evil Lord William, gorgeous Aliena and the quirky carrot-head Jack.

Chris knows this and he apparently got wind some time ago that Follett was releasing a sequal, which I had no clue about. It was released on Tuesday and on Wednesday he stopped by the book store to buy me a copy - they were already sold out! He wound up surprising me with a copy in the airport when we were heading town to Orlando this weekend.

I am already about 200 pages into World Without End and I already love it though I don't yet know if it will compare to it's predecesor. It takes place about 200 years afer Pillars of the Earth and so far is chronicalling the continued life at Kingsbridge and following many of the decendants from the first novel. So far the characters are just as dymanic and fabulous.

I just wish that Chris could get into the first one so he could be excited with me about the new one. I do wish I had a fellow admirer to share it with...
PS - for the record I have read every single one of Follett's books and there are few I didn't thoroughly enjoy so if you haven't read anything by him I highly recommend that you give him a shot. He tends to do extensive research on topic before writing about them so most of his books include amazing and accurate details.
PPS - I do wish he wouldn't insist on putting his picture on the back of every book - he's so weird looking!

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