This is the colossal story of how the fictitious, 12th-century Kingsbridge Cathedral in England was dreamed of, designed, built, rebuilt and finally achieved its ultimate glory. The entire cast of characters, down to the very mundane aspects of their lives, is painted realistically and in great detail. I really appreciated that the author poured his heart and soul into telling the entire story, despite it resulting in a quite lengthy and intimidating book. I reveled in the amount of detail offered -- it only served to fascinate me further about this time period. The only thing that could have improved the story is if Kingsbridge Cathedral had been real.

posted Apr 11, 2007 at 10:56AM

This book has 971 pages. Fortunately, I got this as a present because there is no way to read this in 2 to 3 weeks, unless you don’t work, eat, or sleep. That’s the bad news. The GOOD news is that this is a fantastic book. Often, when I read a book, I can think of lots to edit. It’s as if authors are padding what they write to make a 300 page (or so) minimum. That’s not the case with this book. You REALLY get to know the characters. But what keeps it interesting are all of the turns and twists. The book takes place in the 1100’s, but don’t let that scare you. It’s written like a modern story and you won’t be put off by Follett’s writing style. This is a great read! Come to think of it, it would be a great book to take on a beach vacation. Even though it was almost 1000 pages long, I wouldn’t mind reading a sequel. It was that good!

posted Oct 31, 2008 at 3:06PM

What a great book this turned out to be!! My long commute to my work place was no longer boring and stressful :) Awesome narration, vivid story line, strong characterization and simply turning history into a gripping story.

posted Jul 10, 2012 at 9:22PM

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