Thursday, November 15, 2007

Medievalism Has Arrived

Novel set in Middle Ages now the current pick for Oprah's Book Club. Of course, lots of people have read Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth but lots more will read him again soon.

Hat-tip: Mediev-L

Update: Oh yeah, and the Beowulf movie opens today.

4 comments:

Raz Godelnik said...

Matthew,

Thoughts on sustainable reading following the selection of this great 973-page book and a green offer to its eco-conscious readers:

http://ecolibris.blogspot.com/2007/11/special-offer-for-oprahs-book-club-new.html

Raz @ Eco-Libris
http://www.ecolibris.net

medieval woman said...

I read this book long ago and really liked it - I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I liked the book!

Matthew Gabriele said...

Never read it, although my Mom tried to get me to when I was in grad school. Might have to take a look now...

Notorious Ph.D. said...

I read Pillars of the Earth long before I went to grad school, and enjoyed it. He does manage to get most of the historical detail (though not all of it) right -- if you read his introduction, you'll see he consulted with the late Warren C. Hollister as he wrote it. I actually pick it up in translation when I hit a foreign country, just to pick up some discipline-specific vocabulary.

The recently-released follow-up, however, can pretty much be skipped, IMO. I read it, and while I wouldn't say it's the same book (set a couple of centuries later to include fun things like the Black Death, and some better development of the female characters in the context of women's roles in the high M.A.), the characters are essentially the same. Disappointing.