The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett Pan MacMillan HK$104
When this novel was first published in 1989, it made an unlikely best-seller. True, its author was master storyteller Ken Follett, but here was a book that not only clocked in at 1,085 pages, but was set in medieval England. Boring, I hear you cry: sounds like the homework you remember hating as a kid. Only, it isn't. It flies by like the shortest short story, thanks to credible characters and vivid storylines. We start with Tom Builder, a poor architect whose family is destroyed by William Hamleigh. Rejected in marriage by the lovely Aliena, William halts work on the house Tom was building, throwing him into destitution and widowhood. Tom rebuilds his life after two interventions. One is divine: the goodly Philip, Prior of Kingsbridge. The other is even more divine: the clever and beautiful Ellen, herself a widow. Ellen's son, Jack, is arguably Follett's hero: he not only picks up William's architectural talent, he also gets Aliena. Set against a fraught political scene (a civil war, mainly), the characters are constantly shifting allegiances, crossing swords and falling in and out of love. Now a major TV series, building a cathedral has never been more entertaining.