The Wilbur Smith Discussion Forums

Well, my all time favorite when I was a teenager (and didn’t know better). What to say of him. He wrote “The Eye of The Needle” in his twenties (if you have not read it, do yourself a favor and do so) I consider this one together with Higgins “The Eagle has Landed” the blueprint of the WWII Thriller genre. Everybody else has copied or take elements from these books.

Other masterpiece is ‘The Pillars of the Earth” (I added it as favorite book under the discussion topic). 1000 pages were never so short.

YES PILLARS OF THE EARTH WAS AWESOME

ditto

I bought a copy from a 2nd hand book shop & kept it as I plan on rereading it. (This is high praise from me as there are only a few authors' whose books I've reread )

Do yourself a favour, get hold of a copy but allow a bit of time - as mentioned above, it's over 1,000 pages!

Also try " A Dangerous Fortune" and "Jackdaws" not as big in scope but great entertainment.

A quick note for those of you who read and loved “Pillars of the Earth”. Ken Follett has been diligently working on the sequel for the last couple of years. The working title appears to be “World without End” and it will be published later this year.

Another reason to mark my calendar!

Here is the link to the sequel of Pillars of The Earth!. Contains book and main characters description!

Enjoy!

http://www.ken-follett.com/bibliography ... t_end.html

A Friendly reminder for all of you that loved "The Pillars of the Earth", (and if you have not read this one yet, I'm not sure what you are waiting for)

Anyway, the reminder...
The sequel to Pillars "World Without End" was finally published in the UK this week, comes out in the US next week and soon to follow in the rest of the planet.

Thanks for that Penitent. I think I'll reread The Pillars of the Earth before borrowing a copy of the sequel. It's been a couple of years since I read it and since it's 1076 pages (paperback copy) I think it'll be a while before I finish it. However I am looking forward to the sequel and hope it's as good as Pillars. It'll be 'going' to be better but then again even if it is half as good, it will still be a good read.

I loved Pillars of the Earth. But some of Follet's recent books were written like they were scripts for TV movies. Hope he has taken his time and created another masterpiece.

Am half-way through World Without End and am finding it very interesting. It's like being back in the Middle Ages again!

Pillars Of The Earth was simply magnificent!! I've read it three times, and enjoyed it more each time. Thoroughly enjoyed "World Without End" too, but not quite as much.

Have read quite a few of Mr Folletts books and enjoyed them all!

There are only one or two authors that I enjoy as much as Wilbur Smith, and Ken Follett is one of them. I have read all his books and (save the last one) and I utterly enjoy his writing. Pillars of the earth is certainly amongst the best, so you can only imagine that I'm looking forward to read the follow up.

Wow, doesn't time fly! I just noticed the first post I made about Ken Follet was Feb 7, 2007. As my "Currently Reading" gizmo says, I've finally started rereading The Pillars Of The Earth. The only problem is, the paperback isn't due out for a while so I'll have to borrow it from the library. I hope I can read it in the required time.

I've just read on the "Pan Macmillan Australia" site that World Without End is #1 and The Pillars of the Earth is #5 on their "What's Hot" for week ending 24th May, 2008. That would have to make Ken Follet a very happy man I would imagine. I've also just reserved World Without End at my local library as I finally finished rereading 'Pillars'. I enjoyed it again but unlike nebogatoff, not quite as much as the first time I read it.

In the meantime, I'm rereading Wilbur's Men of Men and James Herriot's "The Lord God Made Them All" that some one was throwing out.

I have recently read "A Dangerous Fortune" and "Whiteout". "Fortune" was great and a nice surprise, Whiteout is an action packed fun read perfect for the beach.

I have read all of Follet's novels, loved almost all of them including Pillars of the Earth but was disappointed in World Without End (2007). It did not roll along like Pillars and I gave up halfway.

irene wrote:I have read all of Follet's novels, loved almost all of them including Pillars of the Earth but was disappointed in World Without End (2007). It did not roll along like Pillars and I gave up halfway.

I also ended up giving up on World Without End and I didn't even get to the half way mark! The library had it on a 2 week loan period which was ridiculous considering its length and even though I was able to renew it, I still gave up. I probably shouldn't have reread Pillars of the Earth just prior to it as I felt 'burned out' with that story style and it turned out the new one doesn't follow directly after the 'Pillars' any way. It's a shame because I thought it was receiving some good reviews - maybe we expected too much? You never know, I might find a copy in a second hand book shop one day (like I did with Pillars of the Earth), and have another go at reading it.

I have read "Eye of Needle" , "Jackdaws" , "Hornet Flight" and "The Key to Rebecca" (last one is my favorite) I have to admit he is a suberp WWII thriller writer...

Just to say The Pillars Of The Earth is my all time favourite, I have read it 3 times and, no doubt will read it yet again one day.

I also agree that World Without End was a little disappointing as it was so similar in many ways to Pillars but didn't quite have the same sparkle.........

Something very typical happened to me regarding his book Pillars of the earth.

After reading the reviews here and hearing people raving about this book, I decided to keep an eye out for it. I managed to find a paperback in a bookshop at the train station of my home city Eindhoven. However, it cost 12 euros and at that time I really couldn't spare that amount, especially since my bookshelves are filled with books I have bought, but haven't read yet. When I travelled to my parents that afternoon by train, I arrived at another bookshop at the train station of Utrecht. There they also had a copy of Pillars. So, I knew where to look. This was some months back and whenever I have to wait for my train I wander into the bookshops. Then, for my birthday, someone gave me a gift certificate for a book and I immediately knew what book to buy. I passed the bookshops some times after that (I only travel to Utrecht about once a month), but every time I forgot to bring the gift certificate. There it was, on the shelves, glaring at me. Last weekend, however, I remebered to put the certificate in my wallet as I went to my parents once more. I left a little early to get to the bookshop. And what do you know? It was gone! Not the bookshop of course, but Pillars. Ah well, there was still the other bookshop. I was reading A Sparrow falls at the time, and was nearly finished with it. I finished it on the train ride to Utrecht, got out, went to the bookshop to buy Pillars and have something to read on the way back. It wasn't there either! So now I have the certificate in my wallet all the time, still looking for the book. It's a sad tale, nay?