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World Without End | 
| Author: Ken Follett
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $17.55
You Save: $17.45 (50%)
New (53) Used (32) Collectible (20) from $17.54
Avg. Customer Rating:  322 reviews
Sales Rank: 123
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1024
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 2.2
ISBN: 0525950079
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780525950073
ASIN: 0525950079
Publication Date: October 9, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Mint, brand new, and never opened to read, Ready to ship AFTER 5/17 for your gift list or own collection. BCE
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Book Description
Ken Follett has 90 million readers worldwide. The Pillars of the Earth is his bestselling book of all time. Now, eighteen years after the publication of The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett has written the most-anticipated sequel of the year, World Without End.
In 1989 Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, a sweeping epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected. Critics were overwhelmed--"it will hold you, fascinate you, surround you" (Chicago Tribune)--and readers everywhere hoped for a sequel.
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.
Three years in the writing, and nearly eighteen years since its predecessor, World Without End breathes new life into the epic historical novel and once again shows that Ken Follett is a masterful author writing at the top of his craft. Questions for Ken Follett  Amazon.com: What a phenomenon The Pillars of the Earth has become. It was a bestseller when it was published in 1989, but it's only gained in popularity since then--it's the kind of book that people are incredibly passionate about. What has it been like to see it grow an audience like that? Follett: At first I was a little disappointed that Pillars sold not much better than my previous book. Now I think that was because it was a little different and people were not sure how to take it. As the years went by and it became more and more popular, I felt kind of vindicated. And I was very grateful to readers who spread the news by word of mouth. Amazon.com: Pillars was a departure for you from your very successful modern thrillers, and after writing it you returned to thrillers. Did you think you'd ever come back to the medieval period? What brought you to do so after 18 years? Follett: The main reason was the way people talk to me about Pillars. Some readers say, "It's the best book I've ever read." Others tell me they have read it two or three times. I got to the point where I really had to find out whether I could do that again. Amazon.com: In World Without End you return to Kingsbridge, the same town as the previous book, but two centuries later. What has changed in two hundred years? Follett: In the time of Prior Philip, the monastery was a powerful force for good in medieval society, fostering education and technological advance. Two hundred years later it has become a wealthy and conservative institution that tries to hold back change. This leads to some of the major conflicts in the story. Amazon.com: World Without End features two strong-willed female characters, Caris and Gwenda. What room to maneuver did a medieval English town provide for a woman of ambition? Follett: Medieval people paid lip-service to the idea that women were inferior, but in practice women could be merchants, craftspeople, abbesses, and queens. There were restrictions, but strong women often found ways around them. Amazon.com: When you sit down to imagine yourself into the 14th century, what is the greatest leap of imagination you have to make from our time to theirs? Is there something we can learn from that age that has been lost in our own time? Follett: It's hard to imagine being so dirty. People bathed very rarely, and they must have smelled pretty bad. And what was kissing like in the time before toothpaste was invented?
Product Description
Ken Follett has 90 million readers worldwide. The Pillars of the Earth is his bestselling book of all time. Now, eighteen years after the publication of The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett has written the most-anticipated sequel of the yearWorld Without End.
In 1989 Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, a sweeping epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected. Critics were overwhelmedit will hold you, fascinate you, surround you (Chicago Tribune)and readers everywhere hoped for a sequel.
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 racethe Black Death.
Three years in the writing, and nearly eighteen years since its predecessor, World Without End breathes new life into the epic historical novel and once again shows that Ken Follett is a masterful author writing at the top of his craft.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 317 more reviews...
 Delivers your money's, and your 1,000 pages, Worth! May 14, 2008
I must admit I don't often read 1,000 page books. And I don't recall ever reading one in less than a week. This book however, made it easy to do both. The pages flew by without an effort. The plot wove into and out of the lives of each of the four main characters--Gwenda, Caris, Merthin, and Ralph, with a seamlessness that again, is not often found in books that try to spin multiple parallel tales.
As were other reviewers, I too was impressed with the author's ease in venturing outside his own previously established "box" to situate the novel in the 14th century (his earlier books stuck with the 20th century). But I was more impressed with how he develops each of his characters' stories and how he interconnects them. The protagonists start as children, who meet for a game in the forest, and fatefully witness a scene that reveals a secret (a secret "with a capital S", knowledge of which is dangerous inherently to them, and deemed dangerous by those who share it). The children part ways, but are joined again by fate, by their choices, and by the denouement of the secret itself, as they grow into and through adulthood by the book's end.
Beyond the cleverly knit plot, I found the psychological development of both the main as well as the lesser characters fascinating. Each starts with clear strengths and weaknesses. We watch how both sets of traits progress in each; sometimes strength builds more strength, and weakness abets greater weakness, sometimes one's weakness is transformed into strength, and a character grows in virtue, or malice, accordingly. And though the author doles out strokes of luck or misfortune quite "equitably" among his players, he lets each take it from there, to spiral up or down in fortune, guided by his own wisdom or impulse. In most cases, I gave up guessing which turn a character would take next long before the author was done with him.
`So what kinds of stories does "World Without End" tell so well? We read about a town's blossoming on the border between the "Dark Age" and the early Renaissance, from superstition and witchcraft kangaroo trials, to a better enlightenment and faith, and from rigid to more fluid economy and morality, and tolerance. We follow several love stories and marriages through some cool turns--from lukewarm to hot in one nice case, and from hot to cold to hot (and a few more back and forths in between!) in another. We see a mind of a genius engineer at work (Merthin), as he builds the town's infrastructure and lovely churches. We see Ralph evolve from coddled and aggressive boy, to a different man, in a way that will surprise the reader. But I won't give more away...just read and you'll be well rewarded for your 1,000 page marathon!
The Pillars of the Earth
Follett breaks the stereotype . . . . May 13, 2008
When do you read a book or see a movie where the "sequel" manages to equal if not excel its original publication / movie? Follett breaks the stereotype of falling short of his wonderful "Pillars of the Earth" with this marvellous tale of 14th Century England. Its masterpiece of over 1000 page magnificence is full of adventure, love, betrayal, treachery, greed . .and some more. I did not want it to end. Hope Oprah discovers it sooner than she did "Pillars" and makes it the only second book from an author to be merited as her Book of the Month. It is that deserving of the acclaim.
Just finished! May 12, 2008
This book was fabulous. I had loved POTE and couldn't wait to get my hands on this one as well. I had my nose in this book for over a week - just couldn't tear myself away....now what do I do?? I will say that my husband was very happy to see me shut that book and be done with it....now to get on with my life without Merthin, Caris, Gwenda...........
 well below average follett May 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I think I must have read every Ken Follett book now, so, yes, I'm a fan. WWE is one of his weakest. The plot limps along with no discernible beginning or end, there are no cliffhangers that make it impossible to put the book away, no parallel plots that you can vaguely see converge into some horrible disaster in the future, no intricately woven plot strands (yes, yes, there's the buried letter that pops up in the beginning and then again in the end, but really, it doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the novel); WWO has a very small cast of very easily pegged characters, who at a higher than usual rate engage in very much off-the-shelf sex scenes. It's narrative is entirely linear, and plot twists nonexistent; in fact, sometimes you suspect the author simply forgot to pick up again some storyline that he planted earlier. None of that good stuff, in short, that made you love The Pillars of the Earth, Night Over Water, The Eye of the Needle, or The Third Twin.
Most troublesome of all, though, I think Follett lost the edge. He's become soft. The evil characters in this book are so unimaginative, so predictable, so... homespun, the book achieves an almost children's-book-like harmlessness. Maybe it's just hard to come up with truly shocking villains in this day and age of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, but do you remember how, when reading, say, The Pillars of the Earth, you repeatedly caught yourself whispering to yourself `Oh no, he can't, he won't..., not that!!' and it would turn out twice as bad? Well, if that upset you a little too much, then WWE is for you.
So, if you're a Follett loyalist like me, yes, you will want to read it but you might as well wait until it hits the shelf of your local library. If you haven't worked your way through his earlier books, treat yourself to those instead!
Loved it! May 11, 2008
I found the book to start slow for the first 150 pages, but once I became accustomed to the characters I thoroughly enjoyed this book and did not want it to end...........thanks Ken Follett for another great novel.
Cathy Browning
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