In 1989, Ken’s epic novel about the building of a medieval cathedral, The Pillars of the Earth, was published. It remains one of Ken’s most popular books. A World War II thriller set in England, this book earned him the 1979 Edgar Award for Best Novel from the Mystery Writers of America. Ken’s first major success came with the publication of Eye of the Needle in 1978. Subsequently, he worked for a small London publishing house, Everest Books, eventually becoming Deputy Managing Director. He started his career as a reporter, first with his hometown newspaper the South Wales Echo and then with the London Evening News. Over 170 million copies of the 36 books he has written have been sold in over 80 countries and in 33 languages.īorn on June 5th, 1949 in Cardiff, Wales, the son of a tax inspector, Ken was educated at state schools and went on to graduate from University College, London, with an Honours degree in Philosophy – later to be made a Fellow of the College in 1995. On its own or read in sequence with Fall of Giants, this is a magnificent, spellbinding epic of global conflict and personal drama.Ken Follett is one of the world’s most successful authors. Winter of the World is the second novel in Ken Follett's uniquely ambitious and deeply satisfying trilogy 'The Century'. But nothing will work out the way they expect as their lives and the hopes of the world are smashed by the greatest and cruellest war in the history of the human race. Back in Berlin, Carla worships golden boy Werner from afar. But Daisy is more interested in aristocratic Boy Fitzherbert - amateur pilot, party lover and leading light of the British Union of Fascists. At Cambridge Lloyd is irresistibly drawn to dazzling American socialite Daisy Peshkov, who represents everything his left-wing family despise. The international clash of military power and personal beliefs that ensues will sweep over them all as it rages from Cable Street in London's East End to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, from Spain to Stalingrad, from Dresden to Hiroshima. He also encounters a group of Germans resolved to oppose Hitler - but are they willing to go so far as to betray their country? Such people are closely watched by Volodya, a Russian with a bright future in Red Army Intelligence. Into this turmoil steps her mother's formidable friend and former British MP, Ethel Leckwith, and her student son, Lloyd, who soon learns for himself the brutal reality of Nazism. Eleven-year-old Carla von Ulrich struggles to understand the tensions disrupting her family as Hitler strengthens his grip on Germany.

Five linked families live out their destinies as the world is shaken by tyranny and war in the mid-twentieth century.

Ken follett century trilogy book 2