Rating: 
Summary: Sarum
Review: I have been fortunate enough to have visited the Salisbury Plain area, including Salisbury Cathedral, and Stonehenge. Actually, I bought my copy at the Stonehenge site, but was not able to read it until my return home. The cathedral is as awesome in reality as Mr. Rutherfurd describes in his book. The stone walls, St. Ann's Gate, Old Sarum, Stonehenge, and even the unique sundial on the side of the house he mentions are actually to be seen today. The book brings the area to life in a way, I never imagined it could. I am ready to return to the area with a renewed interest and appreciation for its rich history. I again want to gaze on the Cathedral with a clearer understanding of the sacrifice, energy, and passion involved to create such a beautiful edifice in the first place. I took a particularly nice photo of the Cathedral, and when I look at the gorgeously graceful spire, I can better appreciate the amazing engineering feat it is, thanks to the care Mr. Rutherfurd has taken to describe the stones and its masons in living color. I thank him, and look forward to letting his novel London give me a similar experience of historical London.
Rating: 
Summary: Well researched and entertaining
Review: I have never been to England but I have been interested in European history, especially English history, for a number of years.I found the book to be an interesting blend of fact and fancy. Enough history to be intelligent, enough creativity with the characters to keep you reading.
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Summary: One of My Top 5 Books Ever
Review: I purchased this book when it was first published and I have just re-read it, something I cannot ever remember doing with a work of fiction.
To try to do a concise synopsis of the book is virtually impossible because this is an epic volume. Suffice to say that the book begins approx 7000 BC in the ice age and ends in modern times. The book covers the lives of 5 families through the centuries and while you are reading the gripping story you are also receiving a history lesson on the formation of the British Isles, its buildings and people, (if only they were like this at school).
Rutherford takes you through the centuries in a magical way, the main character in the book is not a person but a building (Salisbury Cathedral). The trials and tribulations of the people who lovingly build it and work in it.
If you are interested in historial novels, you have got to read this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Epic Novel but a little boring
Review: I won't bother telling what this novel is about again as every other reviewer has done that. As someone pointed out, there are boring tedious bits and some very interesting bits like the Black Death chapters and the long chapter that deals with Stonehenge. Of the parts that are exciting, they do not seem to go on long enough, maybe 60 page chapters. Then the boring legal chapters seem to go on for 200 pages. I ask why? What with all the intermarriages, it soon becomes very confusing. And to make matters worse, you find one character you like and you want to know how their story is going to finish, you turn a page and you're on the next chapter and it's 80 years since the death of that person. Not many individual stories are ever completed as such.
This is an Edward Rutherfurd book that I gave up on only 400 pages from the end. I have read London and The Forest, and both of them are better than this one, just as long, especially London - but it doesn't seem to drag on endlessly about boring political and legal matters. Unless you really enjoy historical political shaping, then there are better reads out there.
Rating:
Summary: What the last one said, plus some
Review: I'm not giving this book 5 stars just because Rutherford managed to keep it less than 2000 pages. I'm giving it those stars because I managed to enjoy the book. Although it doesn't qualify precisely as fictionalized history throughout, it comes close overall and actually is through most of it. Even for people who consider themselves well schooled in history there's bound to be a lot of minutia that slips by for any piece of geography. Rutherford fills in the gaps for the Salsbury plains and does it with fact where possible, speculation where not possible. And he does it with consistent panache. I'd never given much thought to the details of the building of Salsbury Cathedral, though I certainly was awed, visiting it. Sarum carried me through generations of that immediate period and place of the building in a way that caused me to inevitably have more respect and thought for the builders. Similarly for myriad other incidents and monuments of the area over 20,000 years. Stonehenge, Roman occupation, Viking raids, early Christianity, the bloody reigns of Bloody Mary and others. Make a career of reading this book if need be, but read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining yet tedious
Review: Rutherford's Sarum is a sweeping epic tale of the history of Salisbury as he chronicals five families from the Neolithic Age through the 1980s. What begins as an easy comprehension of the relations of the families develops into confusing, complex intermarriages and overlaps that are all but incomprehensible. If Rutherford had not included the family trees in the beginning of the book I would have been completely lost. As another reviewer mentioned previously, it is easy to become involved in these characters' lives and wanting to know what happens next in their stories. But then you turn the page and find that the novel has progressed 80 years and those characters that you came to love are dead.
For historical fiction, this is a decent novel that is thoroughly research. He includes details and facts that truly make the story seem as though it was once living. However, as any history goes, some parts are more interesting than others, but this varies based on the reader's interests.
Overall, a fairly well written book with great research. If the size isn't daunting, give it a shot.
Rating:
Summary: A British Michener....
Review: Rutherfurd's Sarum, a sweeping historical perspective of the area surrounding Salisbury, England is reminiscent of James Michener's hefty, geographically-focused novels. Ending a better book than it started, Sarum begins slow, somewhat formulaic, even a bit syrupy, but as the timeline marches on Rutherfurd finds his footing.
From the island's geological separation from the continent to a 1985 quest to save Salisbury's crumbling cathedral, Rutherfurd's scope is daunting, yet he pulls it off nicely without tiring the reader too much. The relationships of several local families throughout the ages provide continuity though are, at times, implausible.
Although Sarum fills out it's 897 pages in an enjoyable manner, I am not rushing to consume the other Rutherfurd tomes upon my shelf. Perhaps, this is the best indicator that, while Rutherfurd is a fine author, he lacks at least one Michener quality. He isn't addictively readable. 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Too long & inconsistent quality
Review: The book is too long - over 1300 pages. I found some of the Chapters very interesting, such as the Roman-Britons, the Black Death & the Civil War, but many others just went by as a blur, seeking the next interesting bit.
Rating:
Summary: Too long & inconsistent quality
Review: The book is too long - over 1300 pages. I found some of the Chapters very interesting, such as the Roman-Britons, the Black Death & the Civil War, but many others just went by as a blur, seeking the next interesting bit.
Rating:
Summary: The Romans Conquered England
Review: The Romans conquered England but couldn't conquer the Scots! Sarum is the Roman name given to the English town of Salisbury. This book is a historical novel, told much in the same way as Michener's The Source. The characters are fictional, the history true. The story begins with how Britain became populated at the dawn of prehistory, how it became an island. The story ends in the twentieth century with the 404 ft spire, (tallest in Britain), of Salisbury Cathedral lying in near ruin. In between those events, is the story of stonehenge which is proximal to the modern town. This book is a great primer of British history, especially for someone like me who has an interest in european history but has never been schooled in it. I read this book nearly two decades ago, but it has somehow been filed away in my subconscious all those years. Possibly, given the popularity of the book when it was published in 1987, Prince Charles raised the millions of pounds sterling to repair Salisbury Cathedral. The author was born and raised there, christened in the cathedral. The emperor Hadrian ordered a wall to be built in 122-123 A.D. to keep the barbarians, those wild, unruly Scots out! Hadrian's wall roughly approximates the present border of Scotland and England. Jesus's apostle, St. Andrew, has at least some of his bones in Scotland today. St. Rule was in charge of these relics in Patras, Greece where St. Andrew was crucified on a diagonal cross. (Where St. Andrew's is located today roughly approximates where St. Rule landed in Scotland). He had disobeyed an order of Constantine to bring them to Constantinople because he had been warned in a dream by an angel to bring them to the farthest reaches of the known world, which in 300-340 A.D. was Scotland. The modern Scottish flag has been around as early as 1200 A.D.; it depicts the white diagonal cross, St. Andrew's cross, on a blue background which represents the color of the sky the day St. Andrew died. That's not in this book, but it's my favorite Scottish, true, story! One that you need to know too!
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