Books like The Pillars of the Earth
A master builder in twelfth-century England devotes his life to constructing a cathedral, and the project spans decades of war, famine, and political intrigue.
Explore books like this on the map12 books for readers of The Pillars of the Earth
Fall of Giants
On the day of George V's coronation in 1911, thirteen-year-old Billy Williams goes down a Welsh coal mine for the first time, and his family's story winds with those of an English earl, a German diplomat, two Russian brothers and an American idealist through the First World War and the Russian Revolution.
Kristin Lavransdatter
In fourteenth-century Norway, a farmer's daughter defies her father to marry the charming, reckless knight she loves and lives out the long consequences of that choice.
The Good Earth
A Chinese peasant marries an unloved kitchen slave, and across forty years of drought, revolution, and unexpected wealth they rise and the land goes on telling them what they are.
The Axe
In thirteenth-century Norway, Olav Audunssøn and Ingunn, raised together and betrothed as children, give in to each other before the marriage is settled, and blood is shed over it.
The Knights of the Cross
Around 1400, the young Polish knight Zbyszko of Bogdaniec vows to win three peacock plumes from the helmets of the Teutonic Knights for Danusia, and his oath draws him into the long war with the Order.
Pachinko
Four generations of a Korean family build lives in Japan, enduring discrimination and sacrifice, connected by stubbornness and the pachinko parlours that sustain them.
The Eighth Life
Six generations of a Georgian family unfold across a century of Soviet violence, chocolate, and love, addressed by a great-aunt to her niece.
The Last Kingdom
Uhtred, the young heir to the Northumbrian fortress of Bebbanburg, is captured by Danish invaders in the ninth century and raised as one of them, until war forces him to choose between the Danes he loves and Alfred of Wessex, the last Saxon king standing.
The Winter King
Derfel, a Saxon-born warrior turned monk, looks back on fifth-century Britain, torn by Saxon invasion and quarrelling kings, and on Arthur, a bastard son of the high king, sworn to protect the infant heir Mordred and hold the land together.
Segu
In the late eighteenth century, the family of Dousika Traore, a nobleman of the Bambara kingdom of Segu in what is now Mali, is scattered by Islam, the slave trade and colonialism.
The Thorn Birds
Three generations of a family on an Australian sheep station, and the forbidden love between a beautiful woman and an ambitious Catholic priest.
Centennial
The history of a fictional Colorado town from prehistoric times through the twentieth century, told through its land and its people.