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    World Without End
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    World Without End
    Unavailable
    World Without End
    Audiobook (abridged)14 hours

    World Without End

    Written by Ken Follett

    Narrated by Richard E Grant

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In 1989 Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, a sweeping epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected. Critics were overwhelmed-"it will hold you, fascinate you, surround you" (Chicago Tribune)-and readers everywhere hoped for a sequel. 

    World Without End takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroad of new ideas- about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race-the Black Death. 

    Three years in the writing, and nearly eighteen years since its predecessor, World Without End breathes new life into the epic historical novel and once again shows that Ken Follett is a masterful author writing at the top of his craft.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 9, 2007
    ISBN9781429592598
    Unavailable
    World Without End
    Author

    Ken Follett

    Ken Follett was born in Cardiff, Wales. Barred from watching films and television by his parents, he developed an early interest in reading thanks to a local library. After studying philosophy at University College London, he became involved in centre-left politics, entering into journalism soon after. His first thriller, the wartime spy drama Eye of the Needle, became an international bestseller and has sold over 10 million copies. He then astonished everyone with his first historical novel, The Pillars of the Earth, the story of the building of a medieval cathedral, which went on to become one of the most beloved books of the twentieth century. One of the most popular authors in the world, his many books including the Kingsbridge series and the Century trilogy - a body of work which together chronicles over a thousand years of history - and his latest novel Never - which envisages how World War III could happen - have sold more than 188 million copies. A father and husband, Ken lives with his wife in England and enjoys travelling the world when he can.

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    Reviews for World Without End

    4/5

    141 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Excellent, atypical fantasy, set in the equivalent of the Age of Enlightenment, with solid characterisation, awesomely twisted political scheming, detailed world-building and elegant prose.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant totally brilliant.
      I would recommend this book anytime a superb read.
    • 5/5
      This was an excellent book, even better than Pillars of the Earth, which is surprising. The story is engaging and easily hold your attention throughout the time line. I would highly recommend 8t and look forward to the third book in the series (due September 2017)...
    • 4/5
      I love the novel. I'm used to hearing John Lee's voice but this is pretty good.
    • 2/5
      Such a bad audio quality. Really annoying to listen to it
    • 5/5
      I'm always fascinated by Ken Follet's ability to portray the lives of ordinary people living in the middle ages in England. I enjoyed all three books much more than historical fiction by any other author.
    • 5/5
      Follett gave me everything I could have asked for with this sequel. It reads well on its own but even better with its predecessor. For me this is his best. The series was perfect.
    • 3/5
      The book was good, but it was very clear that this was just the first half of the very large story, so it was obviously not a story in itself. Russell tried very hard to give this book its own rise in action and climax, and once we finally got to it, it was at least intriguing. And it did make me eager to get to the second book right away. There was the feeling of "Now the story is *really* getting interesting."It wasn't that the story in this volume wasn't interesting -- it just took a long time for everything to develop. But the characters were well drawn, and it wasn't hard to adopt favourites pretty quickly. I loved the main character, Tristam, even while I felt that we were actually too much outside, observing him, rather than being right there in his head with him. I also quite liked his cousin, Jaimas, and wished that we could see more of him, but Tristam was so very much the centre of things that I was sorry we didn't. (I got my wish in the second book, though...)I was uneasy about Tristam occasionally, though, because so often there seemed to be evidence that certain characters were using him or had ulterior motives -- yet he continued to trust them. There didn't seem to be any rationale for it, and I felt like he wasn't behaving like a real person. So even though I liked him, I wasn't entirely satisfied with how he was portrayed.The thing that was greatest about the book, to me, was the court intrigue. That was really, REALLY well done, and I frequently laughed in delight, thinking to myself, "I don't know whose side anybody is on!" In fact, I wasn't even sure how many sides there were, in the first place. I thought that was probably very much like a royal court in this sort of society.I did enjoy the book, but I sometimes wondered, with both this and the next one (which was far more gripping) whether they could have been written with half or 2/3 the length.