Hello everyone,
this week is all about adventures in the Middle Ages!
We start with Ken Follett and his famous epic set in twelfth-century England The Pillars Of The Earth.The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known . . . of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect - a man divided in his soul . . . of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame . . . and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother.
Requested by a member of the Association we recently got the follow up book, World Without End.On the day after Halloween, in the year 1327, four children slip away from the cathedral city of Kingsbridge. They are a thief, a bully, a boy genius and a girl who wants to be a doctor. In the forest they see two men killed.As adults, their lives will be braided together by ambition, love, greed and revenge. They will see prosperity and famine, plague and war. One boy will travel the world but come home in the end; the other will be a powerful, corrupt nobleman. One girl will defy the might of the medieval church; the other will pursue an impossible love. And always they will live under the long shadow of the unexplained killing they witnessed on that fateful childhood day.
For those of you who enjoy a good thriller, we have Ellis Peters The Devil's Novice.Outside the pale of the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, in September of the year of our Lord 1140, a priestly emissary for King Stephen has been reported missing. But inside the pale, Brother Cadfael's attention is turned on Meriet, a proud, secretive, nineteen-year-old novice who has been delivered to the abbey by his over-bearing father the Lord of Aspley, to begin a religious vocation. Meriet, meek by day, is so racked by dreams at night that his howl earns him the nickname of the Devil's Novice. Shunned and feared, Meriet is soon linked to the missing priest's fate. Only Brother Cadfael believes in Meriet's innocence, and only the good sleuth can uncover the truth before a boy's pure passion, not evil intent, leads a novice to the noose.
If you like this one, you'll be pleased to know there is an entire series of brother Cadfael solving one murder mystery after the other in the Middle Ages. It's a bit “Name of the Rose” for the beach...
And finally around the same theme, I suggest good trusty old Michael Crichton's Timeline.An old man wearing a brown robe is found wandering disoriented in the Arizona desert. He is miles from any human habitation and has no memory of how he got to be there, or who he is. The only clue to his identity is the plan of a medieval monastery in his pocket. So begins the mystery of Timeline, a story that will catapult a group of young scientists back to the Middle Ages and into the heart of the Hundred Years' War.
Stay happy in any time of your choosing :-)
Your Librarian
Anna
