Highly Recommended Historical Fiction ~ Edge of Eternity [View all]
Ken Follett.
Absolutely engrossing 1000+ page epic that starts in 1961 and ends with a flash forward to Obama's inauguration.
Follett is a master at building stories about people from different places (East Germany, Moscow, Washington DC, London) and walks of life (aid to Bobby Kennedy, aid to Khrushchev, aid to Martin Luther King, British musicians, ordinary people trapped in East Germany) and how they react to historical events from their point of view.
It's also a great refresher on history, meticulously researched (takes him years to write). From the Freedom Fighters to Berlin Wall, Vietnam War, Cuban Missile Crisis, assassinations, Watergate, British band wave, fall of Soviet Union.
It took me two weeks to finish (in time to give it to my sister on a visit) - but can see it as a book to savor over a longer time.
I was astounded to see that the overall rating was not high - but figured it out after reading reviews on B & N...the conservatives hated it and said that the whole book was slanted left. Left was right, right was wrong. How true !
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