This is what I read over the holiday season.  I just found out there’s some kind of mini-series of it and that makes perfect sense.  

“Soap opera.” I stewed for weeks over how to describe it and finally (after giving up almost a month ago) those two words really nail it for me. Ironically this book came into my life soon after the Thomas Hardy debacle and I say ironic because if I were to put that name before the two aforementioned words it would describe this book even better. It seemed to me that Ken Follett was a depressed gay hairdresser who had read every Hardy novel between high school and college so when he cut hair he would tell the ladies Thomas Hardy stories.  
 
Judging from “Pillars” though, he clearly had mixed up the characters and plots so badly that by the time Bev or Jan or whomever urged him to write his own book he was happily free of any real plagiaristic details.  
 
Well the book is a real fun read if you don’t mind cheap and catty set in a rich historical tapestry in which case you might also try “I, Claudius”.

COURTNEY TAYLOR-TAYLOR