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Ken Follett

Biography

Ken Follett

Ken Follett is one of the world’s best-loved authors, selling more than 188 million copies of his 36 books. Follett’s first bestseller was EYE OF THE NEEDLE, a spy story set in the Second World War. In 1989, THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH was published and has since become Follett’s most popular novel. It reached #1 on bestseller lists around the world and was an Oprah’s Book Club pick. Its sequels, WORLD WITHOUT END and A COLUMN OF FIRE, and prequel THE EVENING AND THE MORNING, proved equally popular, and the Kingsbridge series has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide. Follett lives in Hertfordshire, England, with his wife, Barbara. Between them they have five children, six grandchildren and three Labradors.

Ken Follett

Books by Ken Follett

by Ken Follett - Fiction, Historical Fiction

The Spinning Jenny was invented in 1770, and with that, a new era of manufacturing and industry changed lives everywhere within a generation. A world filled with unrest wrestles for control over this new world order: A mother’s husband is killed in a work accident due to negligence; a young woman fights to fund her school for impoverished children; a well-intentioned young man unexpectedly inherits a failing business; one man ruthlessly protects his wealth no matter the cost, all the while war cries are heard from France, as Napoleon sets forth a violent master plan to become emperor of the world. As institutions are challenged and toppled in unprecedented fashion, ripples of change ricochet through our characters’ lives as they are left to reckon with the future and a world they must rebuild from the ashes of war.

by Ken Follett - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

“Every catastrophe begins with a little problem that doesn’t get fixed.” So says Pauline Green, president of the United States, in Ken Follett’s nerve-racking drama of international tension. A shrinking oasis in the Sahara Desert; a stolen US Army drone; an uninhabited Japanese island; and one country’s secret stash of deadly chemical poisons --- all these play roles in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Struggling to prevent the outbreak of world war are a young woman intelligence officer; a spy working undercover with jihadists; a brilliant Chinese spymaster; and Pauline herself, beleaguered by a populist rival for the next presidential election.

by Ken Follett - Fiction, Historical Fiction

It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined. Thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH. Now, his new prequel, THE EVENING AND THE MORNING, takes us on an epic journey into a historical past rich with ambition and rivalry, death and birth, love and hate, that will end where THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH begins.

by Ken Follett - History, Nonfiction

In this short, spellbinding book, international bestselling author Ken Follett describes the emotions that gripped him when he learned about the fire that threatened to destroy one of the greatest cathedrals in the world --- the Notre-Dame de Paris. Follett then tells the story of the cathedral, from its construction to the role it has played across time and history, and he reveals the influence that the Notre-Dame had upon cathedrals around the world and on the writing of one of his most famous and beloved novels, THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH.

by Ken Follett - Fiction, Historical Fiction

In 1558, as power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and Protestants, royalty and commoners clash, testing friendship, loyalty and love. Ned Willard wants nothing more than to marry Margery Fitzgerald. But when the lovers find themselves on opposing sides of the religious conflict dividing the country, Ned goes to work for Princess Elizabeth. When she becomes queen, all Europe turns against England. Over a turbulent half century, the love between Ned and Margery seems doomed as extremism sparks violence from Edinburgh to Geneva. Elizabeth clings to her throne and her principles, protected by a small, dedicated group of resourceful spies and courageous secret agents.

by Ken Follett - Fiction, Historical Fiction

Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy follows the fortunes of five intertwined families --- American, German, Russian, English and Welsh --- as they make their way through the 20th century. EDGE OF ETERNITY, the finale, covers one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the 1960s through the 1980s, encompassing civil rights, assassinations, Vietnam, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution --- and rock and roll.

by Ken Follett - Fiction, Historical Fiction

WINTER OF THE WORLD picks up right where FALL OF GIANTS left off, as its five interrelated families --- American, German, Russian, English and Welsh --- enter a time of enormous social, political and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs.

written by Ken Follett, read by Richard E. Grant - Fiction, Historical Fiction

In 1989 Ken Follett astonished the literary world with THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH, a sweeping epic novel set in 12th-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected. 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.