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Sarum [Import] [Paperback]

Edward Rutherfurd (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (165 customer reviews)


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Product Details

  • Paperback: 1344 pages
  • Publisher: Ballentine Books; New Ed edition (1988)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0099527308
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099527305
  • Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 2.3 x 7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (165 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,430,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Edward Rutherfurd was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and educated at Cambridge University and Stanford University in California. His first book, Sarum was based on the history of Salisbury. London, Russka,The Forest, Dublin and Ireland Awakening all draw on finely researched details of social history. Edward Rutherford has spent much of the last 30 years living in New York and Conneticut. He has an American wife and two American educated children and has served on a New York co-op board.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
118 of 119 people found the following review helpful
Absolutely unbeatable. July 6, 2002
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This overview of English history, full of characters to love and hate, begins with the earliest settling of the Salisbury Plain by primitive hunters and farmers. As civilization develops and flourishes, so the story, evolving into a saga of five families who shape and are shaped by the events of this bit of the British historical story.

The creation of Stonehenge will invade your imagination. Christianity comes and the Salisbury Cathedral is a result. Lives and loves of men and women with their triumphs and disappointments evolve against the parade of ages -- kings and their wars and kingdoms, plagues, revolutions, until we get to Queen Victoria and an age that developed faster than ever. The reader gets the impression of a snowball rolling downhill -- time begins with few people and slower development but one bit of progress inspires 30 more and on it goes, bigger and faster ad infinitum.

Rutherford's research is thorough but it doesn't impede his story. With narrative under strict control, his style is clear, descriptive and tight. Relationships wax and wane through the generations as families grow and change with the times.

Rutherford has said about this book that he admires James Michener and deliberately set out to accomplish for England what Michener did for Hawaii, Texas and others. I think he did it better.

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68 of 69 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This book is a rough read, but it is well worth the effort. The novel begins in prehistoric, ice age England and continues through the present day, as seen through the eyes of a number of English bloodlines. An ambitious project such as this is bound to have flaws, and this is not a perfect book. But it is an outstanding book, and truly gives the reader a "feel" for England and its history.

Some parts of the book are easy reads, and some aren't. The best parts are the parts dealing with stone age England, the Black Death era, Roman era England, and the times around the American Revolution. Some of the intervals in between the foregoing get pretty bogged down, and are tough sledding. But this is a book that is worth reading, worth finishing, and worth reading again.

Oddly, the book largely ignores the Napoleonic War era, one of Britain's most heroic times. It also does not dwell much on the British Empire at its height. It spends more time on histories of old English cathedrals than most of us care about. But what the heck, with a subject as ambitious as this one, criticism is inevitable.

This book will not disappoint, but it does require effort.

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53 of 55 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I love this book! I have since the first time I read it, and I've read it several times since then. I've been a fan of this genre of historical fiction, since James Michener's "Chesapeake" made the history of the area in which I was raised, not only palatable, but interesting and relatively easy to follow. My interest in that particular book was its' ability to teach me about my home. Well, as much as I am from the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., I am also a passionate anglophile. This book not only played well to that passion, it actually whetted my appetite for even more information about that lonely isle off the northwest coast of the European continent.

Edward Rutherford begins his tale in a time, before recorded time, as the last ice age retreated from northern Europe and severed Britain from the rest of the continent. Rooting two fictional family trees in characters from this era, he then takes broad strides through the history of Sarum, an ancient name for the area in and around modern Salisbury, England; right up through World War 2 and into the 1980's. Routinely rooting additional fictional families in characters, which arrive over the progression of ages, Rutherford floats a very human dramatic narrative of individuals, families, personalities and geneology on the real timeline, currents and subtleties of the true history of a fascinating region, country and people.

While focusing on a relatively compact region of England, this book offers some deep insight into the very unique, historically multi-cultural and yet, deeply reserved people that are the English. The history in this book is rich, while not overwhelmingly scholarly. Rutherford picks and chooses his timing, sometimes becoming quite detailed in his descriptions of technological advances or historic upheavals which may have changed the course of human development, and relaxing at other times to nearly "romance-novel" treatments of passionate relationships amonst his fictional characters. He uses mysterious Stonehenge and the beautiful 13th-century cathedral at Salisbury as lasting monuments to the character of a people who force tradition and a resolute slowness to change, at every turn; despite their being invaded and fundamentally changed repeatedly throughout their history.

Enjoy this book. Don't try to make too much out of it. Enjoy the light fiction and learn from the history given; this is a large book, and one without the other would've been too much.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
My all-time favorite book
My interest in historical fiction developed while we lived in Ireland and made many visits to Europe. Read more
Published 27 days ago by bookreader
Sarum Revisited
We first read Sarum in 1989 just before visiting Salisbury, Stonehenge, Woodhenge and Sarum itself, while on a trip from our homeland, New Zealand. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Don Hutton
A truly amazing story of Stonehenge
This is a book well worth reading if you are fascinated by Stonehenge and related legends. I read this book about 20 years ago while taking an anthropology class, and was totally... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Ann McJilton
Enjoyable but a bit dry
I really enjoyed reading this book but it was a bit dry and long winded in parts. I would have liked less volume on nomadic pre-saxon times and more on Victorian/regency England. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Teddyc9
Perfect amount of history and fiction
I do not rate many books a five, but I could not find fault with this amazing book. The historical content is unsurpassed. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Book lover
An Epic Journey You'll Never Forget
Edward Rutherfurd takes us on an epic journey with this Novel. We start at the end of the last ice age and follow five families through the history of one place, Sarum. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Zoe Jones
good, but too much
This is a very well done, well written book. The plot is smooth, the details are very nice, and you can actually conjure up the sights and smells of Salisbury through time. Read more
Published 7 months ago by the nefarious umlaut
An excellent tour through England's history
Although this is quite a hefty book at just over 1000 pages, it is a satisfying read that had me coming back for more. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Beth Ann Valek
A beautiful woven tapestry of characters through the ages!
'Sarum' has been one of those RARE books.. that I've not only bought for my own bookshelves.. but, bought several copies to gift to friends and family. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mamabear Cherei
In top 10 I've ever read
All right, I admit it - I am an unrepentant Anglophile. However even without my love of all things British, this is a fabulous book. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Max's Mom
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Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
FIRST, BEFORE THE beginning of Sarum, came a time when the world was a colder and darker pIace. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
sarsen site, new henge, huge sarsens, bending pillars, little mason, poultry cross, little stone figure, chalk ridges, shallow harbour, sacred sayings, earthwork walls, gold solidi, five rivers, cloth business, fulling mill, excise men
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Edward Shockley, High Priest, Adam Shockley, John Wilson, Miss Shockley, Peter Shockley, Lord Pembroke, Canon Porteus, Peter Mason, Peter Wilson, Ralph Shockley, Captain Shockley, Sir Henry Forest, Samuel Shockley, Godric Body, Jethro Wilson, Stephen Shockley, Aquae Sulis, Bishop Roger, Jocelin de Godefroi, King Alfred, Lord Forest, Black Death, John of Shockley, New Street
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