The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known...of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect - a man divided in his soul...of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame...and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother.

A spellbinding epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of 12th century England, this is Ken Follett's historical masterpiece.

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Listening Length	40 hours and 56 minutes
Author	Ken Follett
Narrator	John Lee
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	December 31, 2006
Publisher	Penguin Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B000X1MX7E
Best Sellers Rank	#493 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #6 in Fiction Sagas #36 in Historical Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #39 in Suspense (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

5 star		76%
4 star		15%
3 star		5%
2 star		2%
1 star		3%

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Top reviews from the United States

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ElizaSF

Revolting

Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2019

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I’m a little sad to say that I could not finish reading this book; something I never do. I like the premise, the modified history doesn’t bother me. Lengthy descriptions are fine because they are written engagingly. But the rape scenes!!!! I get that William is a villain; he’s ruthless and cruel, but the loving adoration that Follett treats William’s inner thoughts with is disgusting and disturbing. He takes nothing but pleasure is describing the most depraved thoughts and acts with barely any understanding of the effects on the victims, much less us readers. If you want to be horrified to the point of nausea, this book is for you.

278 people found this helpful

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stephanie

no thanks

Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2019

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I ordered this by accident. My kids were telling me about it and I looked it up. Next thing I know I received notice that I'd ordered it.
I tried reading it, the author is preoccupied with rape and sex. I won't be finishing this read.

158 people found this helpful

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Richard

Chaos and Evil do not stop the building of the Kingsbridge Cathedral!

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2018

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725 pp.

The Welsh author, Ken Follett, has written a tome about the building of a cathedral in the imaginary village of Kingsbridge, England, in the 1100s. He stipulates that he is not a believer and that his ambivalence about writing this historical novel lasted for years. However, at some point in his life, he became enamoured of and obsessed with cathedrals, and visited many of them prior to putting words to paper. The novel occurs within the context of ecclesiastical versus imperial power, as well as during the Civil War between King Stephen and the empress Maud. This setting is similar to the situation during which the Brother Cadfael novels occur.

As mentioned in the title and the comment above, the overarching them of the book is the decades-long building of a cathedral at the Kingsbridge Priory, amidst much corruption, political manipulation, slaughter, and evil aimed at Prior Philip's Benedictine monastery. However, Follett has created a novel that possesses stories within stories within the primary theme. In it, we meet some of the most loving, if sometimes eccentric, people, along with destructive, power-seeking, and envious ecclesiastical and political figures. Follett does not spare anyone her or his weaknesses and faults, including the most significant protagonists. Nor does he cease to decry the sheer brutality of Earl William and Bishop Waleran Bigod, the primate of Kingsbridge.

The author creates a cast of many protagonists as well as antagonists who are central to creating destructive challenges for the Prior to build the cathedral. Church corruption is made clear, as is the use of political people and men-at-arms to effect the plans of Bigod to destroy Philip. Follett has clearly done considerable research, and blends historical persons with fictional characters very well.

At times, I thought the author could begin to tie up the narrative but he elected to create yet one catastrophe after another. In the beginning of the novel, the writing could be described as simplistic, but it evened off later into a respectable and engrossing narrative. If one is interested in Medieval history, the role of Church and State during this era, and a plethora of characters, plots, and subplots, this book is recommended. One gets a sense of monastic living, the lives of serfs and peasants, and the overall life of clerics in this work. In addition, the age-old themes of good and evil underlie all the dynamics in the story.

169 people found this helpful

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ben manu marr

I get it, but

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2019

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I see how people would like this and for the most part everything is there for this to be considered a great book, but. There’s a continuous cycle of things are going okay - let’s destroy everything. People pick themselves up from disaster and are going okay - let’s destroy everything. It just gets boring because you know what’s coming. Anytime something is going well you know that in a few pages that the worst thing in the world is going to happen. Like clockwork. It’s boring and I wished I hadn’t persisted to the end. And don’t get me started about all the girls having “hot bodies”. I didn’t know that was a term used back whenever. Weird

118 people found this helpful

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J. Hooligan @ Platypire Reviews

5 Platypires

Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2016

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I once read an interview by one of my favorite indie authors, Matt Schiariti, and he listed this book as his all time favorite. I bought this book later on this year, but put off reading it because IT IS OVER 1000 PAGES - OH MAI GAWD!

But, wanting to look cool I decided to give it a try. Honestly, it didn't sound like anything I'd be interested in... so I didn't have any expectations.

And then I started it, and whoa man. I got sucked in.

There's so much drama in this book. Right when you think one thing is resolved, something else pops up. Oh, and I cried. I don't even know how many times. I also lost a lot of sleep.

Despite the amount of pages, I flew through this book.

This takes place over an amount of decades with lots of characters. But they're all written so well, even the ones that only show up for a couple pages, that they are all distinctive. And there are so many intertwined stories, but there wasn't any times where I was confused about what was going on.

After finishing it, I brought it to my dad and told him he has to read it. I very rarely make recommendations to my father. (This is the second book I've told him to read in the last five years.)

Major thing to point out - the woman in this story are ah-may-zing. Yes, it's historical and things were different back then. But they were all written as strong, independent, and Ellen was totally the most sane character in the entire book. My only complaint is that there wasn't enough focus on her.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes drama and has any interest on 12th century England.

359 people found this helpful

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L. C. Willard

Follet's Finest To The Date Of Its Printing.

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2018

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Probably the best book I've ever read, and I've read a few (see my personal library... that's just the paper backs.) The story weaves in and out of relationships and technology as it takes you through the lives of its characters. Follett writes stories of places in The Pillars of the Earth that you are easily able to visualize and whose characters seem to come to life before you! Love Folletts work!

74 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Andrea

Easy to read five star classic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 16, 2016

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I read the blurb of this book and thought it wasn't for me, and so I reluctantly started to read this mammoth historical fiction as a favour to my mother who was unwavering in her insistence that I would love it. All I can say is that I was wrong and she was right!

This book read like a film/movie in my head. It was absolutely nothing like I had expected and was all absorbing from start to finish. An easy to read epic classic.

An astounding five star read from start to finish.

62 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Read it twice

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 22, 2018

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Very easy to read and quite fast paced story.
It covers the early medieval period during unsettled time of King Stephen and Maud. Evil lords and ladies, petty jealousies. A hero Monk/ prior. An insight into the building of churches and cathedrals and the lives of the people of the time. If you think life is tough now this is an eye opener as to how cheap lives were considered then, how disposable the poor and uninfluential were. I have now read it twice, about 10 years apart and I had forgotten how much there was to it.Some of it I grimaced at, the rape scenes and the bear baiting.I was delighted when I found there was a 2nd book, World without End and I have discovered that since 2017 there is a 3rd. Its in my shopping basket now!

27 people found this helpful

Shells

History comes to life!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 4, 2018

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I remember reading this many years ago. I was utterly desperate to read a book and this had been sitting on my shelf. I'd avoided it because "cathedrals?! What can be interesting about that?!" But I was wrong and soon became hooked. After that I was a big fan of Ken Follet books. He's taught me more about history (Especially ww1 ww2 and the cold war) and made it stick far more than history class at school managed. If schools introduced these books rather than the stale old boring history books we had id have learnt more!!
When you can follow a hero that you can get behind like in this book, you become more attached to the story. You can put yourself into their shoes and allow your imagination to come to life. I'm very much looking forward to reading this novel again on my kindle.

23 people found this helpful

Julian Guffogg

Over long medieval tale

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 30, 2019

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Firstly, the book is over long, at over 1000 pages. The author keeps introducing more and more plot elements which one wonders how they contribute, it could have ended nicely several times earlier!
Its wordy and verbose, and the narrative is actually predictable and cliched.
It reminded me of a pantomime sometimes, with the "baddies" constantly against "the goodies", one could almost imagine booing at certain passages.
The sex scenes are poorly written to be honest, and quite cringe-worthy at times. The first scene with Tom and Ellen on page 72 is quite ridiculous.
Others have cited several inaccuracies, and the speech is very modern - did they really say "awesome" for example?
On the plus side, the book is historically accurate and mostly holds ones attention. He has obviously done his research.
Parts of the book are good to read, and hold the attention, but I wouldn't call it "A Classic Masterpiece"!

15 people found this helpful

nivag

The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2018

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Wonderful book also its companion book World Without End. Have read both and enjoyed them before buying for my son who is now reading one of them. They are long books but give insight into how this country was a long while ago. Also after reading and visiting various cathedrals in England it is appreciated how incredibly clever the people were to build such wonderful buildings without today's technology. Also it is appreciated how hard lives were then and in contrast how much easier our lives are today.

Ken Follett must have done an immense amount of research in order to write such brilliant books.

19 people found this helpful

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