Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

So, this is my first post, and I am going to start with a book I read recently that I loved. Pillars of the Earth is the story of a cathedral being built in the fictitious town of Kingsbridge. The story follows many characters, including the Prior of the monastery, the original master builder and his family, a young noblewoman, a young nobleman, and many more characters. The story follows all of these characters, and shows how they interact. The book spans, I believe, thirty or forty years.


I loved how this book handled the many characters and long time frame, and how well it develops its characters so that they are all very real. They all have flaws and fears, but they also have good qualities as well.


This book is, admittedly, not light reading. The copy I read, a smallish paperback, had 992 pages. There is also a "sequel" that takes place two hundred years later, and follows some of the descendants of the characters of the first book, but I am only a few pages in, so I can't say anything about it yet.