Name: Winter of the World
Rating: 4.065573770491803 (61 reviews)
ISBN: 9781611761177

Ken Follett

John Lee

Book Two of the Century Trilogy

Winter of the World

Winter of the world

Christine

it was good, although the only storyline that completely drew me in was the one involving Carla.

Winter of the World is the second novel in Ken Follett's uniquely ambitious and deeply satisfying Century trilogy. On its own or read in sequence with Fall of Giants and Edge of Eternity, this is a magnificent, spellbinding epic of global conflict and personal drama. A BATTLE OF IDEALS 1933, and at Cambridge, Lloyd Williams is drawn to irresistible socialite Daisy Peshkov, who represents everything that his left-wing family despise, but Daisy is more interested in aristocratic Boy Fitzherbert, a leading light of the British Union of Fascists. AN EVIL UPRISING Berlin is in turmoil. Eleven-year-old Carla von Ulrich struggles to understand the tensions disrupting her family as Hitler strengthens his grip on Germany. Many are resolved to oppose Hitler’s brutal regime – but are they willing to betray their country? A GLOBAL CONFLICT ON A SCALE NEVER SEEN BEFORE Shaken by the tyranny and the prospect of war, five interconnected families’ lives become ever more enmeshed. An international clash of military power and personal beliefs is sweeping the world, but what will this new war mean for those who must live through it?

Jonathan Tysick

Perhaps even better than Fall of Giants, this book brilliantly and tragically humanizes the events of the world in the 1930's-40's. Looking forward to the final installment of the trilogy.

Disclaimer: I only got a hundred pages through the book before I had to put it down. That's something I don't do often, but life's too short for bad books. 

I used to be a huge fan of Follett. I read everything he wrote (his early stuff was mostly spy novels written with a literary flair), and when I came across Pillars of the Earth in my early 20s, I fell in love with Follett's characters. The prose was always simple, but the story was sweeping, and the characters were incredible. 

I'm not sure what happened, whether my tastes as a reader have evolved or Follett succumbed to the pressure of dumbing down the book to appeal to a wider audience. Probably a bit of both. 

It can't be too much of the latter, though, because I enjoyed the first of this trilogy. Winter, though, is just too much. Everything is spelled out, nothing is left to the reader, and the dialogue is wholly unbelievable. It's as if Follett is trying to explain World War II to a fifth-grader.

Winter of the World Book Two of the Century Trilogy

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