Before 1989, Ken Follett was a highly successful thriller novelist but in that year he published his magnum opus, The Pillars of the Earth, which was a significant departure from his previous style. Whereas he'd made his name with a series of contemporary thrillers, The Pillars of the Earth was an epic historical novel about the building of a cathedral. His publishers were unsurprisingly very reluctant for one of their successful writers to take such a risk but he held his ground and after a long time writing it was released and ended up being Follett's most successful book by a large margin, making his nervous publishers a hell of a lot of money in the process. ...  Read the complete review

World without end is the follow up book to Pillars Of The Earth by Ken Follett, and even though this may bring joy to the hearts of those who read the original, it is no in no way a necessity to have read the original book before reading this. The main reason for this is that although the book is set in the same place and in a similar time, perhaps some 100-200 years following the events of Pillars of the Earth, but does not involve the same characters the previous book, although mentions of them can be seen at points, as well as the inclusion of some of the offspring of the original characters. The story begins with the main characters of the book as ...  Read the complete review