Rating: 
Summary: Amazingly Good.
Review: Pillars Of The Earth is an easy 5-star winner. I read this book on recommendation from a relative. It is not one I would have ever chosen by reading the jacket. A story about a 12th-century church-raising and the lives of its prior and sundry others just does not sound interesting to me. But I was astounded. This is a fantastic book. The research he must have done is overwhelming, but he doesn't overwhelm you with it. He makes the history come alive. He narrates a surprisingly exciting tale with a kind of fluidity and insight that easily suspends your disbelief and has you thinking you're reading a story told by someone who was actually there.The plot is thick and rich, the characters simply masterful, and the language lyrical and flowing. Follett is a professional in every sense of the word, and earns my deepest respect with this epic work. -- Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead
Rating:
Summary: I love it , i love it, i love it.
Review: Why is this not a movie yet? I am almost finish reading this book for the 2nd time and feel bad because it has gotten to the point where i can't talk to my boyfriend on the phone at night before bed because i need to reserve at least 1 hour a night of reading. (i just can't put it down!) Thank you for writing what so many people dream about everyday and for describing characteres so well that i actually see some people on the street and imagine that they could be the character in the book.
Rating:
Summary: Magificent!
Review: I did not sleep for 3 nights while reading this book. It still ranks as my all-time favorite novel. If you're at all interested in medieval history, this book is a must read. Despite its length, this is one book I will read over again - and again.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but lacks an ending
Review: Maybe I got my hopes up too much from reading other reader's reviews, or maybe I was just snowballed into thinking I was picking up the greatest book nobody's ever read. The truth of the matter is, however, that the book is very good, but not great. I think my biggest quarrel with the book is that it didn't stay true to form. The entire novel centered around the building of a great cathedral and it should have ended when the building was finished. All plot lines could have been wrapped up at that point and the book may have garnered another 'star' from this reviewer, but in the end I think Follett missed an opportunity. There was nothing gained by adding yet ANOTHER hardship on the main characters and it only served to drag out the inevitable. My recommendation? Read the book, you'll be happy you did. Just keep in mind that what your reading is a satisfying page-turner, not the greatest story ever told.
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT!
Review: There is little else to call it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime book, the story being spun with such grace, the reader knows it was dying to get out and be read. Mr. Follett did not write this book. This book wrote itself and used Mr. Follett as its medium. A wonderful story.
Rating:
Summary: the Pillars of the Earth
Review: Follett's finest. Avery good read and repeat.
Rating: 
Summary: A decent vacation read
Review: This book was highly recommended by the owner of the bookstore I frequent. Another customer noticed I was holding it in my hand indecisively and declared it was the best book she'd ever read. On the strength of these recommendations, I bought it for my vacation reading. It was a good read, but I had higher expectations of it than it delivered. I must disagree with those who have reviewed this book and called it "an epic". It's not an epic--it's just a long book. It has more similarities to a t.v. mini-series than to the epic tradition. I will forgive any number of transgressions in your average 300-page murder mystery, but given that "Pillars" is 983 pages long,I expected "more bang for my book", to pervert the idiom. I wanted to learn things that I didn't know before. The first few hundred pages are quite well written. Follett's writing flags toward the middle (but by then, I was two days into the book, and it was raining at the cottage, so I continued reading). The problem, I think, is that we are to believe that this is a mostly historically accurate portrayal of daily life in the Middle Ages. Follett even thanks several people at the end of the book for assisting him with their "encyclopedic knowledge of the Middle Ages". In my opinion, if an author is going to go to that much effort for historical accuracy, he can't marry it up with sentences such as: "They looked fascinated: they had probably never seen a woman done by two men at the same time". There are parts of the book where the reader is brought up short by Follett's lapse into lurid prose and it is all of a sudden unclear whether one is reading a historical novel or a Harlequin romance. And that makes us suspicious of the historical aspect of the novel and ruins the suspension of disbelief. Follett's writing style is uneven--he devotes an inordinate number of paragraphs to a description of a bear-baiting contest at a fair, yet resolves the dispute between the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury in only a few pages. There are too many disembowelments and heaving bosoms used to--pardon me--"flesh out" the middle of the book. All in all, a decent vacation read, but not the best book I've ever read
Rating:
Summary: A magnificent construction
Review: I'll go for the obvious metaphor and declare this a cathedral of novels: immense, stoutly contructed, cerebrally and emotionally inspiring. Pillars is a wonderful and engrossing story, filled with memorable characters and instructive historical details. Without ever resorting to a detached historian's voice, Follett lets the point of view shift quite naturally from one character to another, bringing the reader fully inside their shared world of 12th century England. I learned more of ordinary Medieval life than from any history lecture: how they ate, worked, mated, worshiped, even the origin of surnames: lords taking the names of their properties (Hamleigh, Winchester), commoners their occupations (Miller, Carter), others simply the names of their fathers (Jack's son, John's son, Richard's son). The major themes of human virtue versus human evil, and social justice versus unchecked power, are nicely sustained and reinforced throughout the story. And of course you learn a lot about cathedrals.
Rating:
Summary: Pillars of the Earth
Review: The book is great. The audio tape is terrible. The reader seems to be hell-bent to finish the reading in a stated number of tapes, or either the reading was technically altererred by speeding up the recording and thus raising the pitch of the reader. I could take no more than 5 minutes of the tape. I returned it to Amozon.com for refund. I am looking for another reader. Also, what's this about having to listen on a specific channel to hear the recording? Technology hath gone from this place. D.C.
Rating:
Summary: As good as it gets.
Review: Ken Follet's took me on a journey of a life time. His use of words and phrases capitvated me. I found myself immersed in this story and at times comming to the surface of reality only once in a while realizing that it was like I was actually there. I could smell the smells and feel the cold and warmth of the air. Truely, spinning a magical spell on this reader so strong that I did not want to leave the place and when forced too hurried back when ever time allowed. This book is a must for those lovers of the great escape into the past of history.
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