Oprah Winfrey's latest book club pick is Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth (NAL, $24.95, 9780451225245/0451225244), which the show's website
touts as a "medieval mindbender" featuring "forbidden love affairs,
political power plays, looting, plunder and burning villages. . . . Once you
start this book, you won't be able to put it down!"
First published in 1989, The Pillars of the Earth was already Follett's bestselling book before enjoying renewed interest lately with the publication of a long-awaited sequel, World Without End (Dutton, $35, 9780525950073/0525950079).
On Follett's website, he describes Pillars
as "my most popular book. It still sells about 100,000 copies a year
in paperback in the U.S., it was number one in the U.K. and Italy and it
was on the German bestseller list for six years. It's overwhelmingly
the book that readers talk to me about when I meet them in bookshops.
It's becoming a cult."
He thought that was a cult following? Just wait until Oprah works her bookselling magic.