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| Summary from Amazon: For the first time in paperback—all three of Jean Plaidy’s Katharine of Aragon novels in one volume.Legendary historical novelist Jean Plaidy begins her tales of Henry VIII’s queens with the story of his first wife, the Spanish princess Katharine of Aragon.As a teenager, Katharine leaves her beloved Spain, land of olive groves and soaring cathedrals, for the drab, rainy island of England. There she is married to the king’s eldest son, Arthur, a sickly boy who dies six months after the wedding. Katharine is left a widow who was never truly a wife, lonely in a strange land, with a very bleak future. Her only hope of escape is to marry the king’s second son, Prince Henry, now heir to the throne. Tall, athletic, handsome, a lover of poetry and music, Henry is all that Katharine could want in a husband. But their first son dies and, after many more pregnancies, only one child survives, a daughter. Disappointed by his lack of an heir, Henry’s eye wanders, and he becomes enamored of another woman—a country nobleman’s daughter named Anne Boleyn. When Henry begins searching for ways to put aside his loyal first wife, Katharine must fight to remain Queen of England and to keep the husband she once loved so dearly.
If you want to read my thoughts on the book visit my journalI summarize the book and add in a few of my own feelings about it.I update everytime I read at least 100 pages more, I am at page 370 currently. | |
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| Long summary from amazon: "I am Catalina, Princess of Spain, daughter of the two greatest monarchs the world has ever known...and I will be Queen of England."Thus, bestselling author Philippa Gregory introduces one of her most unforgettable heroines: Katherine of Aragon. Daughter of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain, Katherine has been fated her whole life to marry Prince Arthur of England. When they meet and are married, the match becomes as passionate as it is politically expedient. The young lovers revel in each other's company and plan the England they will make together. But tragically, aged only fifteen, Arthur falls ill and extracts from his sixteen-year-old bride a deathbed promise to marry his brother, Henry; become Queen; and fulfill their dreams and her destiny. ( the rest after the cut including my thoughts on the book ) | |
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| Has anyone used audible.com? Any thoughts on the service? Tech support if any? Are you able to burn the books you download onto CDs(for me specifically, listening while driving)? | |
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| Can't remember the title of this book. From what I can recall of the summary on the back its about a woman who is researching something and part of that research involves a grimore or something like that with some numbers in the name, like 187 or 487. There was something about a vampire wanting that particular book, that it had been out of circulation for a really long time. And the novel seemed to have the same sort of historical information theme as The Historian did. Does anyone know of the book i'm thinking of? | |
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| The girls, the monster and the Artifact!
More than a year ago I reviewed the first half of what I thought then was a "gentle" children's adventure, Stargazer, by Ottawa indie cartoonist Von Allan. I bought the concluding sequel back in December if memory serves, but circumstances didn't see me get to it until now.
A black and white comic book featuring three pre-pubescent girls in the role of unlikely heroines, Stargazer features a Magic Doorway in the tradition of Alice's rabbit-hole and Narnia's wardrobe (and the Starship Enterprise's warp drive, for that matter).
But what seemed a "gentle adventure" in its first half, proves to be a considerably more spicy brew in its second. What seemed to be turning into an exercise of that hoary old "And then she woke up!" cliché becomes something very different — and very memorable — by the time the story is over.
A little rough-hewn, Stargazer nevertheless has considerable virtues. This story of friendship and loss just might be a gateway drug to comics for that young boy or (especially) girl in your life — but keep a kleenex handy. My full review lives on my site, ed-rex.com/reviews/books/stargazer_volume_two. | |
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| Dragonquest is book two of The Dragonriders of Pern, and when I read it years ago I never understood the title. It makes more sense to me now: the quest is the struggle of the people of Pern to carve out a final victory against the alien destruction of Thread. Although the characters fail to vanquish it directly, they find innovative ways to combat it, strategies that might eventually render the dragons obsolete.
This isn't really a story about the battle against Thread, it's a story about progress fighting tradition. Our heroes represent progress, and generate (or rediscover) an amazing number of new inventions: flame throwers, batteries, the telegraph, paper, symbiotic grubs, fire-lizards, and the telescope. (I have to admit that the whole telegraph thing really throws me; it seems anachronistic in a society that doesn't even have the telescope. Maybe they found the plans for it in a basement somewhere? This is not explained.) The problem isn't finding the new ways to fight Thread, it's convincing the backwards traditionalists to try them.
It's a very optimistic book, in the sense that the people look forward to a future without Thread, brought to them by the wonders of new technology. A Pernese Enlightenment, of sorts. It reminds me a bit of the original Star Trek series. Maybe the similarity is from that sense that we can attain utopia from all this cool new stuff. It has a nostalgia to it somehow, in the context of our more cynical present.
Another thing that strikes me about this book is the death of the two golden dragons. Brekke and Kylara, their riders, are foils for one another, but both are fighting tradition. Brekke wants her dragon to mate with a low-status brown dragon whose rider she is in love with, while Kylara is having a violent affair with a man with whom she plots to take over the world. Both are punished for their audacity when the two dragons kill one another. Brekke falls into a deep depression, while Kylara (whose sins were greater) goes mad. I don't think that this was a deliberate theme on McCaffrey's part, but it comes across as a commentary about what happens to women who have sex with someone they're not supposed to.
The scale of this book is more epic than the first, with a larger number of characters and places. The plot is more complex, without a clear resolution, which leads into the rest of the books in the series.
My verdict: Probably better written than the last book, more tightly plotted, and I have to admit, I like some of the newer characters better. This was my least favorite of the series years ago, probably because I didn't understand the complexity and the themes as well as I do re-reading as an adult. | |
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| When I was in junior high (wow, twenty years ago now...) I discovered Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series and devoured everything she had written concerning dragons. After reading and re-reading and daydreaming about dragons nonstop for a few years, I moved on to other books, and eventually sold most of my copies of her work.
I didn't think much about them again until a couple weeks ago, when I found my falling-apart copy of Dragonflight, the first in the series, buried in the back of a bookshelf, and decided to read them all again. I'll admit to being afraid that they wouldn't be much fun now, since I'm no longer twelve, but on the other hand I'm still happily reading a lot of genre fiction. So, starting at the beginning, here goes!
The first thing that struck me about Dragonflight is the casual violence against women. Sure, Fax is supposed to be a Bad Guy, and if he beats his wife, well, he's a Bad Guy. But the heroes, F'lar and F'nor, are described as nobly restraining themselves from striking women. Lessa, the heroine, is manhandled by her lover F'lar more than once; he grabs her and drags or shakes her on more than one occasion. She and the other characters accept this as normal. Lessa's first sexual experience, while she is psychically emmeshed with her dragon in heat, is described as "violent," and treads disturbingly close to rape. (You could argue that she consented at the time, but you could also argue that she had no idea what was going on; I don't want to go further with that argument, but it was disturbing either way.)
Lessa is a strong, heroic female protagonist, who throughout the book pushes the boundaries of what women are supposed to do, or are capable of. She takes revenge on her family's murderer, flies her dragon in defiance of custom, and undertakes immense risk to save her people. But domestic violence wasn't considered an issue in 1968, when Dragonflight was published. I wasn't alive at the time, and I wonder how much of its portrayal here comes from societal attitudes regarding domestic violence, and how much of it from the author's personal experience. Viewed through modern eyes, Lessa and F'lar's relationship isn't particularly healthy, and I don't find it to be a satisfying romance.
(All of that said, I still think it's healthier than the romance in Twilight, so maybe our attitudes as a society haven't come that far in 45 years after all.)
And there's still a great adventure story here. The dragons don't have a lot in the way of individual personality, but they are distinctly animals, and not people. The worldbuilding is solid, and the threat of the impersonal, alien Threads is ominous enough to drive the plot.
My verdict: Surprisingly readable, despite its flaws. | |
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| Does anybody here read Entertainment Weekly? There was a review this week saying something like, if you like A Visit From the Goon Squad, you'll like this book. And I forgot to copy down the title before I threw away the magazine. Can somebody please help!! | |
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|  MY THOUGHTS: I really thought that this was a cute read and would have given it another star if the ending had be different. I can't wait to read more of her books! | |
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| I’d greatly appreciate your review and comments, I was one of the 24 locked and tortured in the Soviet psychiatric hospitals and prisons, all because of our faith. I survived, but some didn’t. Fit and healthy before, all under the age of twenty-five, they died from large doses of psychotropic drugs, from force feeding, from tuberculosis and malnutrition. The Human Rights News Brief (Munich) referred to this group as “truly prisoners of conscience”. Resistance International (France) described them as “completely peaceful non-violent group with no political goals”. But instead of fighting real crime in a country riddled with corruption, the Soviet authorities made no excuses for fabricated court cases, detention in psychiatric hospitals and violent suppression of these innocent lives. This account has never been published before, it is a tribute to these forever young people, but there is much more in it about the USSR, about the choice between good and evil and about the ultimate fight – the fight with oneself. I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you. Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/EXPERIMENTAL-GUIDE-ETERNAL-LIFE-ebook/dp/B006UMHWYY/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1 Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/EXPERIMENTAL-GUIDE-ETERNAL-LIFE-ebook/dp/B006UMHWYY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326871315&sr=8-1 | |
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| The Lady of the Rivers Book Giveaway 
Reviewed on Fashionista Piranha in December 2011
See also Author Event: Philippa Gregory & The Lady of the Rivers, October 2011
To celebrate the release of Philippa Gregory's The Lady of the Rivers - the new paperback edition hits bookstore shelves today - the publisher has kindly allowed me to give away two copies of the book to my readers! If you've not yet investigated Gregory's Cousins' War series, The Lady of the Rivers is a great place to start. While it's the third book in the series, the story is chronologically the earliest, so you can read it without spoiling the rest of the books! And if you've already read the first two books in the series...well, what are you waiting for?
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| Has anyone read The Hunger Game by Suzanne Collins? I've seen the previews for the movie and all the hype surrounding the books, but I was wondering if it was worth the read.  - Mood:curious
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|  RANKING OF JOHN JAKES' "KENT FAMILY CHRONICLES" SERIESHere is my RANKING of the eight novels from John Jakes' Kent Family Chronicles. | |
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| I'm looking for audiobook recommendations in the genre of horror and/or fantastic fiction.
I'm looking for things similar to:
Old Stephen King
Borderlands anthology series
Clive Barker's Horror
Terry Pratchett
The Left Hand of Darkness
Dhalgren
The Felix Castor novels
Neil Gaiman
Also horror/fantastical fiction I do not enjoy or am not looking for:
Dresden Files
Sandman Slim
Howl's Moving Castle(enjoyed, but not in the mood for this sort)
Lord of the Rings(same as howl's)
Douglas Adams
Dean Koontz | |
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| A language epidemic erupts among Jewish families; children's speech makes their parents deathly ill. Soon it spreads to the rest of the population. This dark fantasy is the premise of Jewish New Yorker Ben Marcus's new novel, The Flame Alphabet published today by Knopf (read more on examiner.com ; also read my New York Journal of Books review:http://goo.gl/GrQGA ). Posted via email from davidfcooper's posterous | |
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I hate coming down hard on books by relatively unknown writers; given my 'druthers, I'd much prefer to pass over them in silence. At the same time, if a writer goes to the trouble of sending me a review copy (even an electronic copy), it seems disrespectful to ignore it.
So I've struggled with this review, and not only because I have been "friends" with the author (or rather, with his pseudonym) on Livejournal for a while, but because it became clear in the reading that Benjamin Tate's heart is very much in the right place.
Well of Sorrows tries hard to play with, and even to reverse, many of epic fantasy's tired tropes. The protagonist is more peace-maker than warrior, and in plays of scenes of glorious battle we are given the blood and the shit and the brutality of hand-to-hand combat.
Unfortunately, good intentions alone don't make for good art. Well of Sorrows suffers from shallow characterization, structural confusion and world-building that is not remotely convincing. Click here for my full review (hardly any spoilers). | |
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| Sometimes, even though I should know better, I forget how detailed, engaging and even disturbing a young adult novel can be. (I have no idea why I do this. There are many, many engaging disturbing and intense young adult novels out there.) So, I was surprised when I read the The Demon’s Lexicon because it’s a very intelligently written urban fantasy with some fairly intense moments. (And when I say intense I mean horrifying and various levels of disturbing.) I have to admit that the book also in general reminded me a little of Supernatural, though the show and the book have almost nothing in common except two brothers and also, demons. Our Heroes are Alan Ryves and his brother Nick. Read the rest on A Wicked Convergence of CircumstanceI was just extremely impressed by how the writer was able to make demons so completely alien. | |
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|  "North & South was like chocolate to her; her comfort food in literary form, a safe haven she could dip into whenever she needed a respite from her troubles or even just a distraction for a while." Carrie Preston is desperately trying to stand up to her pushy family and failing badly. When her favourite aunt dies she retreats into her favourite book, Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, only to find herself suddenly stuck in that story and seriously messing with her favourite romance of all time! When Carrie's kooky aunt bequeaths her a pair of amethyst earrings in her will and says that they will grant her her hearts desire, she has no idea that she will end up in the middle of the 19th century, slap bang in the middle of her favourite book. With nothing but the clothes on her back and her rucksack, she is taken in by the Hale family and soon finds herself living in the dirty, smoky industrial town of Milton. The only bright spot on the horizon is that she gets to meet the romantic hero of the story, John Thornton but it's not long before he starts setting his sights on her rather than Margaret Hale! Far from living her dream, she is appalled to realise that she is about to destroy the greatest romance since Elizabeth Bennett met Mr Darcy! "It's clear that the author loves these characters(even when she's destroying
one of MY favourite romances, lol!) and everyone gets a happy ending
(well, aside from the deaths in the original book which also exist here). It's sad in places and for some reason I felt the deaths of Margaret's parents more keenly than in
did in the original book. Overall though, it's a light hearted affair and quite amusing in places."Review by Martha on Amazon Facebook PageAvailable in paperback and kindle fromAmazon.comAmazon.co.ukAll other ebook types | |
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| Hi, I posted here a few months ago asking for fantasy novel recs and got a looong list - you guys have been really awesome. Trying my luck again.
Do any of you know of a novel where its cover is of a square tower against a dark blue backdrop (it seems like it's been built on a promontory) and the words "I will follow you until you die" written in Chinese? As far as I can remember of the story is it's about a white man (soldier, I think) who encounters a young Chinese girl. She follows the Chinese tradition in which young girls have to wrap their feet so that they'll stay small in order to find husbands. I think the soldier helped her open the bandages in one scene and he was disgusted by the smell of her feet, but still helped her clean up nontheless. I'd like to know its title, please. I've been searching for the book for forever and haven't gotten much luck.
Also, does anyone know the book The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng? I'd like to have some recs of books like that.
But historical fiction recs in general would be superb as well. I may be picky, but I like to see what people come up with. :) | |
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|  Title: Voices of Rosewood: Notes from the Woodlawn Project (It's a free e-book.)Editor: Dr. Elizabeth Woodlawn Genre: Poetry Pages: 64 Synopsis: This is dark, uncensored work. Triggers: sexual abuse, mental illness, violence, sadism, torture, self-harm, rape, self-blame, murder (I may have missed a few). Be advised. Summary: Rosewood Home for Women was established in 1935 in Thibodeaux, Louisiana, by a joint grant from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Public Works Association and the Louisiana State Health Commission. These are the poems (and one piece of biographical short prose) of the women who participated in art therapy through the Woodlawn Project, an art therapy curriculum introduced by Elizabeth Woodlawn in the 1970's. Looking for reads and reviews. This book is about to go on tour (Spring of 2012) and so solid, critical reviews are very important. Thanks! X-posted: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) snuffy_chan, snuffyart, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.2) bookish, bibliophily, _survivors_, , poems, and others. | |
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| New York Jewish fiction writer Susan Daitch's third novel Paper Conspiracies, which was published last week by City Lights Books, takes an indirect approach to late Nineteenth Century France's Dreyfus Affair by way of peripheral minor actors in the scandal and via cinema pioneer Georges Mèliés' contemporaneous dramtized documentary film L'affaire Dreyfus . The novel's six sections alternate between 1990s New York and Paris in the 1890s, 1930s, and 1968. In my New York Journal of Books review of the novel I enthusiastically recommend the book "to fans of highbrow, erudite historical fiction. Readers who enjoy the novels of Umberto Eco, for example, will probably also enjoy those of Ms. Daitch.” I also draw an analogy between late Nineteenth Century French anti-Semitism and Twentyfirst Century American Islamophobia. via examiner.com Posted via email from davidfcooper's posterous | |
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| The Silent Strength of Stones takes place in the same universe as The Thread That Binds the Bones. Our Male Protagonist is a teenaged boy named Nick who is something of a creeper in that he likes to spy on the people living in the vacation cabins near the store he helps his father run. His creeping ways get him into considerable trouble when he meets a strange girl named Willow and her family. (The creeping was so emphasized by the summary on the back cover of the first edition I came across that I ended up avoiding the book for years until I finally decided to read it. I’m happy to say that while the creeper behavior is part of the plot, it is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.) read the rest of this review at A Wicked Convergence of Circumstances | |
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|  Sometimes described as the female Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell's classic novel, North and South, dealt with issues of class, feminism, social reform and the plight of the working classes, entwining those themes seamlessly with a timeless romance between Margaret Hale and John Thornton. Northern Light is a continuation of that novel which sees John and Margaret embarking on their lives together whilst working to improve the lives of their work force. Review 5 Stars - Loved this book. From start to finish, it kept me gripped. I didn't want to put it down so stayed up until 5am to finish it. It's everything you want from a good read and a perfect sequel to North and South. If you only read one book this year, let it be this one! Posted by Lainey on Amazon With the threat of another strike, a series of bad mill accidents, a lethal fire and failed speculation, life in Milton is not easy for anyone and it won't be long before the mill masters and their workers clash once more, with devastating consequences. Getting married and starting a family is difficult enough at the best of times but for John and Margaret, married life will present unique challenges and despite the reforms they are making, even they will not escape Milton's troubles unscathed. Available for Kindle On Amazon UK On Amazon US And other ebook formats P.S. The Facebook page also has some rare footage and pics from the 1975 BBC adaptation of North and South, staring Patrick Stewart as John Thornton. Cross posted to bookshare books bookish & book_worm | |
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| I'd appreciate some reccomendations for a ggod ghost story. Adult, YA, whatever. Just so you you know I really hated The Birthing House. I don't know if that matters, but I really hated it. | |
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|  In my New York Journal of Books review I quote Ms. Miller, "Every new piece of information keeps me on the road to the ever-expanding possibility of the quest, a quest that in the end will still yield only partial knowledge--and will never give me, return to me, those past lives." Ms. Miller, a retired CUNY Graduate Center English and Comparative Literature professor, is an appealing prose stylist, but because of its focus on the genalogical search process this book will mostly appeal to genealogy buffs in general and Jewish genealogy buffs in particular. Continue reading on Examiner.com | |
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|  MARY AND HENRY CRAWFORD IN "MANSFIELD PARK"I wrote this ARTICLE about Mary and Henry Crawford from Jane Austen's 1814 novel, "MANSFIELD PARK". | |
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| I have a question. I read a book back in the 90's when I was still a kid, and the other day a thought of a phrase ran through my head from said book.. I just can't remember the title or any character names or who the author was.
I know that I was probably considered a 'young adult' book, or maybe just a 'teen book'. I can only remember a few things. I really hope someone out here can help
-It was read in the main characters point of veiw. (Which was female)
-She found a diary from some years prior and started reading it. In one section of the diary, she reads that the author of the diary sees a girl in a sweater too small for her and calls her "tight sweater"
-At some point, the main character somehow time travels the year the diary is written, ends up putting on some clothes which includes a sweater that is too small for her (i.e. she is actually the 'tight sweater' chick)
and that is all I can remember. Help??? | |
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| Posting is being weird, so I can't upload the book cover this time. Well, I can, but then I can't do anything about the alignment.
One Day, David Nicholls
My Rating: 4/5
Summary: (Goodreads.com) It’s 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day—July 15th—of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself.
My Review:With ads for the film all over the place, I decided to pick the book up to see what all the fuss was about.
One Day is yearly snapshots into the lives of two people, Dexter and Emma, from their early twenties to late thirties. We get a look at their ups and downs, missed chances and bad decisions over the years.
As a love story, it is quite ordinary, but it takes talent to make an ordinary love story gripping for 450 pages, and David Nicholls succeeded. Had it not been written in the ‘snapshot’ format, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much. I liked not being shown every detail of their lives and loved seeing the blatant changes that happen year to year.
It was funny and heartbreaking in the right places; I cried like a little girl who got her pink My Little Pony stolen.
It’s a refreshing love story and a quick read; definitely worth checking out. | |
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| Akata Witch reminds me a little bit of both Harry Potter and the Young Wizards series. It manages to do this despite the part where Akata Witch is not actually like either except in the very vaguest ways. (I have to say some of it also reminds me of Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s books.) This book is one of your “young person discovers that magic exists and learns to use it, being moderately to extremely heroic along the way,” type novels and is atypically typical of the subgenre. My review on A Wicked Convergence of CircumstancesFollow A Wicked Convergence of Circumstances on Facebook | |
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| Does anyone know a website that discusses/lists the various connections/references in stephen king's books to his dark tower world? For example, the bad guy in The Eyes of the Dragon is named Flagg and there's also Flagg in The Stand. | |
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| You're a dirty whore-monger, Chester Brown
Autobiography is a risky endeavour at the best of times; not only will the memoirist's craft be scrutinized and judged, but so too will his or her character. So it is probably a good thing for Chester Brown that he is one of the best cartoonists of his generation, because he really does have sex with prostitutes.
In fact, his latest book, Paying For It, is all about his decision to give up on romantic love in favour of sex for money.
It has become almost trendy to dabble in the sex-trade. Bookshelves groan beneath mounds of tell-all memoirs and fictions, and even relatively mainstream television has gotten into act, with no less than one-time Doctor Who companion Billie Piper disrobing on a regular business as Belle du Jour. But memoirs and fictions glamorizing the life of johns?
Maybe not so much
It is one thing to admit to taking money for sex; to confess paying for sex, on the other hand, remains quite outside the bounds of polite society.
If Brown doesn't make an explicit analogy between his "coming-out" as a john and the struggles of gay men and lesbians who braved arrest and assault when they refused to any longer closet their sexual natures, Paying For It certainly implicitly invites the comparison, if only by Brown's refusal to be ashamed.
As Brown's friend (and ex-girlfriend) Kris tells him, to most people, johns are "... creeps. Who knows what they're capable of? If I had a daughter I'd be worried about what would happen if she was in the same elevator as one of those guys."
So would you want to read a comic book by and about one?
Click here for my full review, with inevitable spoilers — not safe for work. | |
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| I'm on a serious Sherlock Holmes kick right now. And thus far besides trying to calmly sift through the original mysteries by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I have read Holy Clues: The Gospel According to Sherlock Holmes (which is quite good by the way) and I've started Dust and Shadow which is pitting Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper. I have been sifting through a book which is called Encyclopedia Sherlockiana and it has been very informative as I write something involving Sherlock Holmes. Anyone else have any recommendations for fiction/nonfiction about Sherlock Holmes? | |
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| World Without End, Ken Follett My Rating: 4/5
Summary: (Amazon.com) World Without End takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroad of new ideas--about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race--the Black Death.
My Review: Pillars of the Earth is one of my favourite novels. It was like a soap opera, it was corny in places, it was unbelievable, but I couldn’t stand not know what would happen next. After reading only 50 pages of Pillars, I spent all day in a panic because the family may not get their stolen pig back! Recently, I was in the mood for a long novel to get lost in, so I picked up World Without End, the ‘sequel’ to Pillars of the Earth. It really could be read as a stand-alone novel. It was just what I needed: a historical soap opera. There were evil people being evil, corrupt people manipulating others, and good people facing hardships and disappointment. There were moments where I felt Follett was rehashing minor plot lines from Pillars, but I wasn’t too fussed about it. Perhaps because I expected him to do it. It was a new set of characters with new problems and, just like the other, I needed to know how it would turn out otherwise my brain may have imploded. Plus, the plague makes an appearance to make it even more dramatic! It wasn’t as good as Pillars, I felt a tad more connected to the characters there, but it was a great, epic read nonetheless. | |
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