Two at Once

Back in August of this year, I wrote that I had begun reading Alex Haley's Pulitzer Prize winning novel "Roots".  It's a BIG book, nearly 900 pages long.  When I left on my trip to Europe in September, I did not want to lug that heavy book with me.  So, on that trip and also my trip to Ohio, I took a different book with me, another historical novel, "A Column of Fire" by Ken Follett.

After my trips, I left "A Column of Fire" at the home of Alejandro's family and "Roots" at the apartment.  So, I have been reading two novels at once.  I have only a little more than one hundred pages to go on "Roots", and I am well over half way through the Follett novel.

Ken Follett, a British writer, gained fame for his espionage thrillers. In 1989 he published his first historical novel, "Pillars of the Earth".  It became an international best-seller that surpassed his popular spy novels in sales.  The story was set in a fictional English town called Knightsbridge against the backdrop of the construction of a Gothic cathedral in the 12th century.  Since then, Follet has continued to write in both genres.  His sequel to "Pillars of the Earth", entitled "World Without End", continues the Knightsbridge saga in the 14th century during the Black Death.  A prequel, "The Morning and the Evening", is set in the year 1000 and tells the story of the founding of Knightsbridge.  I have read and thoroughly enjoyed all three of them. 

"A Column of Fire" takes place in the 16th century during the reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I when England and much of Europe is embroiled in religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants.  The novel again is centered in Knightsbridge, but the storyline takes us beyond the English town to Spain, France, Flanders, and even the Caribbean.  It is another absorbing work by Follett.  Last year he published yet another volume of the Knightsbridge series.  "The Armour of Light" takes the town into the Industrial Revolution.  I will have to go to one of the bookstores here that carries books in English and look for it.

So, I am switching back and forth between the stories of the family of Kunta Kinte as slaves in the South and of Ned Willard, diplomat to Elizabeth I of England.  But please do not suggest that I buy a Kindle.  I like the feel of a book in my hands, and I spend too much time as it is in front of an electronic screen.