Dear Ken Follett,

I've read all of your books, but Pillars was so different from the others. Was this a story that you carried with you for years and then finally wrote? It was, and always will be, one of my favorites. I recommended it to my book club, and we read it during the month of July.

— Christine C.

Dear Christine,

You've guessed right…I had this idea in my head for at least 10 years before I settled down to write it. Back in the '70s, when I first thought of writing a book about the building of a cathedral, I was not sufficiently master of my craft, and I had to wait until I had the experience of several books behind me before I could tackle such an ambitious project.

— Ken Follett