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I’ve been reading a decent amount in the past few months and I just thought I’d share some of my recent favorites:

• Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I think Katy mentioned this book in one of her posts a few months back and I saw it at the bookstore and decided to pick it up. It’s wonderful! The story takes place over many, many years following the life of a family in the 12th century in England. The story starts following Tom Builder, an architect who has a passion for designing and building cathedrals, and his family. The story continues with Tom’s adoptive son, Jack, and his love interest. The storyline continues with many great characters whose stories are all intertwined. The best part about this book is that it follows the lives of normal, everyday people rather than kings or queens and nobility. It really makes you feel for the characters and their struggles to survive and just how outright crappy life was back then. It’s a really long read, but I really couldn’t put the book down.
• World Without End by Ken Follett. After reading the previous book I had to pick this one up. This book is a sequel to Pillars of the Earth and takes place two centuries later. Many of the characters are related to people you read about in the first book. The story centers around Caris, a descendant of Jack Builder from the first book, and her love interest Merthin. Like Tom, Merthin is also interested in architecture; specifically cathedrals. The second half of the book also deals with the Black Death that plagued Europe. I don’t think this book was as epic as the first, but it’s still certainly good and it’s fun reading about what became of the descendants of the people you read about in the first book.
• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I won’t lie when I tell you that the first couple of chapters are really, really boring. I had trouble getting through them since the beginning of the story tends to drag, but once it gets going it’s a pretty good book. The story starts in the years after WW2 in Scotland. Claire is a nurse who worked for the British Army and is married to a man who’s incredibly interested in genealogy. One day she is transported back in time 200 years and encounters her husband’s predecessor; a ruthless man named “Black Jack” Randall. She escapes from Randall by being captured by a clan of Scottsmen and eventually falls in love and is forced to marry one of the clan, Jamie. I haven’t completely finished the book yet, but I am aware that this book became a 7 book series though the first book can stand alone as a work on in on itself.
• The White Queen by Philippa Gregory. I’ve read a great deal of her books since falling in love with The Other Boleyn Girl a year or two ago. This book isn’t one of her bests, but I did enjoy it regardless. The story takes place before The Other Boleyn Girl and deals with a woman who fell in love with the then rising King of England, Edward. The story goes through their love, marriage, and fight to keep the crown in spite of the rising Tudors (who eventually DO take over England as we do know). The story is quite nice because of the love between the two characters, but lacks a lot of details and ends at a really bad spot. I know that Gregory intends to write a second book about what happens after, but still, meh. It’s still enjoyable if you like historic fiction about the royal family of England!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.