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Oct 14, 2011

Stephen rated it:

Put some towels down because I sense a fully formed gush geyser about to spill all over this review. This book was fantastic and really did it for me. I loved it, all 1000+ pages, and I wouldn’t have minded if it was considerably longer (TWSS).

After more than loving The Pillars of the Earth (that’s right, I lurved it), I had tall hopes for this sorta sequel and let me tell you it was more than up to the task.

I was parched and hungry for a good meaty read. Well conside More...

29 comments like (61 people liked it)

Sep 08, 2010

Lynn rated it:

This "companion" novel to Follett's 1989 classic The Pillars of the Earth is set in the same community, 200 years later. I'd been excited about it ever since I heard it was coming out this fall - Maybe too excited, because it just didn't live up to my expectations.

The first half of the book seemed a sort-of ho-hum retread of "Pillars". In place of Jack Builder, we have his look-alike great-great-great-many-times-over grandson, Merthin. Instead of Aliena, we get More...

13 comments like (43 people liked it)

Sep 16, 2010

Alex rated it:

WORLD WITHOUT END BY KEN FOLLETT: There are books that you read, with vaguely interesting stories, that sometimes within less than a month have been forgotten, ignored, barely recollected except for title, author and a minor recall of plot. Then there are books that change your mind on life, that give you a thrill as you read them and think about how much you’re loving to read this particular book, and how it’s making such an impression on you, and how you’re going to remember it for a long par More...

7 comments like (48 people liked it)

Sep 08, 2010

La Petite Américaine rated it:

In all practical theory, this book should be on my 'Sucked' shelf. It's a tale of the Middle Ages, the gross injustices of the time, and it truly amounts to a thousand-page Medieval soap opera. It hasn't got much to do with it's predecessor The Pillars of the Earth, except that it's in the same location 200 years later, with characters that are "descendants" of the Pillars characters. There's none of the complex building and architectural aspects found in Pillars, the graphic sex and v More...

11 comments like (28 people liked it)

Sep 08, 2010

James rated it:

Follett finally completed the sequel to his evergreen historical novel, The Pillars of the Earth, and although I was compelled by the story enough to read all 1024 pages in a week, I was saddened at how poorly the book compares with its predecessor.

It is interesting to consider the nearly 20 years between the first book and this sequel. Many things have changed in our culture since then, leading Follett to inject even more egregious anachronisms into this book than the first. For exa More...

0 comments like (21 people liked it)

Apr 12, 2008

Karen rated it:

Well, Pillars of the Earth is one of my favorite books and I was looking forward to completely enjoying this without reservation. But way back when it first came out, I stumbled onto an online discussion that cited a passage with anachronistic vocabulary, which bothered me. It was very anachronistic. So it was a single passage, but it added some reservation to my anticipated complete enjoyment. And then I got to page 15, and there's this conversation that no two people would ever have under any More...

0 comments like (23 people liked it)

Sep 08, 2010

Christine rated it:

The Pillars of the Earth was pretty good, but WWE is supposed to be a sequel... However, WWE seems to be a 1000 page snorefest after the first book. Perhaps if I had read them 18 years apart... then I would not have minded that WWE is a plagiarized (by the same author) copy of TPOTE. They have the same plot, same polar characters (no one is reasonable, they are all so totally overboard in every description), same activities, same cads, same villians, same love story... Same everything... But t More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2008

Jillian rated it:

I got this book for Christmas and was so excited to start. I was a big fan of Pillars and figured I would love this as well. I liked it a whole lot, but definitely not as much as Pillars. The story was familiar (and at points almost a retread of Pillars). It was often anachronistic - especially the character of Caris. I loved her and I'm all for feminism and strong female characters, but it made me wonder how accurate and believable she really was. Clunky prose such as "she would have More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2007

Mary Catherine rated it:

This is the sequel to "Pillars of the Earth." It's set 200 years after that original book but is very similar in terms of plot and especially character. Every main character from "Pillars" has their parallel in this book: the intelligent, noble builder; the feisty, born-before-her-time love interest; the evil, corrupt nobleman who rapes and pillages his way into power. It gets to the point where you start to wonder why you're bothering reading it. There's absolutely nothing n More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Nov 25, 2008

Margaret rated it:

A pretty darn good book - you laugh, you're horrified, the whole gamut - but what makes this a truly amazing "read" is the audio recording by John Lee, who is also the reader of Penguin Audio's recording of "Pillars of the Earth." Both recordings are well worth the time commitment to listen to 30+ (unabridged) CD's - I walked around and drove everywhere with my headphones on listening to both of these amazing books.

"World Without End" is a continuation More...

2 comments like (7 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2008

PennyiSD rated it:

One of my book clubs selected this as we had all read and loved Pillars of the Earth when it came out 20 years ago.

I got halfway through this tome and decided I didn't want to waste another moment of my life on a book which failed on so many counts. The characters didn't seem real and certainly didn't elicit any sympathy from this reader as they moved from one contrived crisis to the next, the writing was repetitive and juvenile (a gifted high school student could write better), th More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Feb 11, 2008

Mom rated it:

I cannot find the words to express how disappointed I was with this book. Having enjoyed "Pillars of the Earth" twice I awaited the issue of the sequel with immense enthusiasm.

What a letdown! The characters, the plot,the writing are all dreadful...Mr Follett has tried to bring the 13th century into the 21st and it hasn't worked. The gratuitous sex and foul language spoil the book from the first chapter and for the first time in years, I will not be finishing this nove More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Feb 15, 2010

JG (The Introverted Reader) rated it:

Set a couple of hundred years after The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End picks up the story of the town of Kingsbridge. I don't want to say too much about the twists and turns the plot follows, so I'll just say that the book is the story of a generation of townspeople and what life in the mid-14th century might have been like.

Had I read this on its own, or even after the 20 years between the publication of Pillars and World, I would probably have enjoyed it more. As it is, I More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 08, 2010

Incommunicado rated it:

This novel is Follett's follow up to The Pillars of the Earth which is one of my favorite novels and probably never had a chance of living up to my expectations. It follows the lives of four people beginning with a disturbing childhood encounter. Four very different people: two brothers, one brilliant, but not physically imposing and one one strong and ruthless; and two women, both resourceful, but one from a wealthy family and one for whom life was one struggle after the next. Seeing how ea More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Mar 14, 2008

Lindsay added it

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2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 27, 2008

Leah rated it:

"...epic, historic novel"??!
Good Lord, I must be reading a different book than everyone else.
This seems formulaic and forced. Characters are more like caricatures; and what's the deal with everyone fornicating all the time??! Not that there's anything wrong with fornicating per se, I just don't care for books that use it as a major plot device time after time after time.
I actually checked the cover to make sure it wasn't "Clan of the Cave Bear" 2.0...
I More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2008

Krista rated it:

I think Danielle Steele might have written parts of this; she must have at least been responsible for the overwrought plot and the ridiculous, unnecessary sex scenes. It was bawdy and endless, just like every Steele book I read as a blushing 12 year old. I also kept imagining Richard Chamberlin as Merthin, as the plot just kept going and going like the Thornbirds miniseries. There were about seven-hundred and fifty climaxes and denoument. Just when a character was happy, he or she would be More...

2 comments like (7 people liked it)

May 19, 2011

K.D. rated it:

It is not at par with the first sequel - The Pillars of the Earth. The suspense is not always sustained and the characters were not as interesting as The Pillars. The only image that was so shocking that I even dreamt about it was the skinning of the thief while alive. My head was spinning while I was on that page and at first I did not know if it was fatigue or the whirling sound of the pressurized water while by car was being cleaned. Then I realized that it was the shock that I had with the d More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 12, 2011

Chantelle rated it:

I loved this book. The reviews said it might be a let-down after Pillars of the Earth but it wasn't, at all. You know how when you're reading a book and you get so invested in the characters that even as you're living your life, you walk around in a fog, waiting to get back to the book? That's how I feel. I spent two weeks reading Pillars and World, over 1800 pages. I stayed up way too late and maneuvered my way through middle school hallways reading. I literally could not put it down. And now i More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2010

Ildiko rated it:

I LOVED the Pillars of the Earth -- BUT this book... well it's a hit and miss. It gets better around page 700+ but before that it is like a copy of the first book. Same old story, same old sadness... This book was just dragging... where as I couldn't wait to read the next page of the Pillars of the Earth, I was just utterly board with this one... Sorry Mr. Follet I think I'm done reading your books for now...

More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2008

Stephanie rated it:

Total rip off of the first (Pillars of the Earth). Not impressed. Could barely get through it.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2011

Jorge rated it:

Este es, con diferencia (junto a Los Pilares de la Tierra) el mejor libro que he leído. La profundidad con la que Ken Follett describe sus carácteres, con sus sentimientos, pasiones, formas de pensar y de actuar es, sencillamente, magnífica, y un deleite para el lector. Te alegras de las buenaventuras de los que te agradan así como, de la misma manera, te satisfacen los malos momentos de los que no. Además, te preguntas una y otra vez a lo largo del libro de qué forma acabaran dichos personajes, More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 26, 2011

♣Ðᾰƞƞᾰ♥ rated it:

This is an enormous book, really! Ken Follett is one of the best, this is for sure, but "World Without End" seems to me that he have done, once again, the impossible. What a wonderful book! Yes, let me admit it is quite long (1000 are a hard task, indeed), but it is so worth it. Every page is another problem to solve, another stilen moment of pleasue. And this is what I like about it: whenever things seem to get on track under control again, when the world gets safe and lovable again - More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 08, 2010

Emily rated it:

Ken Follett is a clever man. Having written the bestseller The Pillars of the Earth, he then wrote an even longer sequel called World Without End which is strikingly similar in tone, plot, and characters. But he waited nearly twenty years to do it. Instead of saying, "Ken Follett is a one-trick pony," people said, "Oh, hooray! I remember that I really liked that book."

World Without End actually takes place several hundred years after The Pillars of the Earth but sin More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2010

Svenja rated it:

It has beend a while since i last read a Ken Follet book and def. been a while since 'pillars of the earth'. Historical books are one of my favourite kind of books (if not THE favourite kind), esp. when the setting is in England. I loved Pillars of the earth so i was excited to read this. I must say... i was disappointet. Sure, the historical things where all interesting and the characters where kind of interesting too, but the story was a bit ... lame. I had to force myself a bit to finish it. More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 08, 2010

Val rated it:

O.k.... this book was fabulous! I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. to finish the book. World Without End is the much awaited follow-up (albeit roughly 200 years in time later) to Ken Follett’s classic, The Pillars of the Earth. In World Without End, Follett returns once again to the town of Kingsbridge. He’s picked another eclectic group of people to follow through the course of the book which spans roughly 34 years. There’s Merthin, son of an impoverished knight who is apprenticed to an abusive m More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2009

Joe rated it:

The much anticipated sequel. Its hard to describe what frustrates me so much about the book. Once again the characters were well introduced, the webs of relations interwoven, and life played on through a few decades. Follett does a nice job of building a historical experience in concrete ways. That's part of what I like so much. Yet, the first book gave a candid look at such holiness and such wickedness on the part of the characters. Given the scandal coming to light in the Church in 02, I More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 10, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

This is another guilty pleasure. Purely guilty pleasure. I love the story, the characters are interesting and well-rounded (in that no one character is a saint), and the plot moves well. It's one of those books that just sucks you in like a TV show, and you could do nothing but read it for days and be perfectly happy.

I have two complaints with Ken Follet, though:

1) He doesn't give his readers enough credit. My memory isn't awesome, but I can recall the story arc for any More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 21, 2011

Shannon rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 15, 2008

Janice rated it:

the sequel to ken follet's Pillars of the Earth, written about 20 years after the original. pillars of the earth was probably my first foray into historical fiction, so i could not wait to get my hands on this book so many years after i had read the first.

it is very similar to the first book, the characters are the descendants of those in pillars. their story takes place about 300 years after the first book, in england in the 1300's. although i have heard complaints from many peop More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)