The Pillars of the Earth
Ken Follett, 1989
A master mason risks his family’s safety to chase the building of a cathedral in 12th-century England, where faith and power collide.
Ken Follett
Feels like society, serenity and awe.
Start with The Pillars of the Earth.
Ken Follett worked as a newspaper reporter before turning to thrillers; he has said the idea for this novel grew from his fascination with medieval cathedrals.
The few seconds between a charging war-horse and a child in the wheat.
For an instant Tom stood still in a sick panic. Then he leaped forward, shouting and waving his arms; but this was a war-horse, trained to charge at yelling hordes, and it did not flinch. Martha stood in the middle of the narrow path, staring as if transfixed by the huge beast bearing down on her. There was a moment when Tom realized desperately that he could not get to her before the horse did. He swerved to one side, his arm touching the standing wheat; and at the last instant the horse swerved to the other side. The rise’s stirrup brushed Martha’s fine hair; a hoof stamped a hole in the ground beside her bare foot; then the horse had gone by, spraying them both with dirt, and Tom snatched her up in his arms and held her tight to his pounding heart. Books by Ken Follett
Fall of Giants
Ken Follett, 2010
Five families, a Welsh mining boy, and the First World War: a historical saga about ordinary people caught in the machinery of empire.
World Without End
Ken Follett, 2007
In fourteenth-century Kingsbridge, four children who witness a secret grow into adults divided by ambition, faith and plague. Follett’s medieval world is grimy, gripping and full of moral price.
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