2 of 6 copies available
A thirteen-year-old Welsh boy enters a man’s world in the mining pits.…An American law student rejected in love finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson’s White House.… A housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with a German spy.…And two orphaned Russian brothers embark on radically different paths when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution.
From the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty, Fall of Giants takes us into the inextricably entangled fates of five families—and into a century that we thought we knew, but that now will never seem the same again.…
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Awards
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Release date
September 28, 2010 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780307737397
- File size: 882335 KB
- Duration: 30:38:11
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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The hours just crawl by for the listener of this massive potboiler, which follows the intertwined fates of five families--English, Welsh, German, Russian, and American--as they implausibly play a part in most of the major decisions of WWI and the Russian Revolution. John Lee's American accent is better than in some previous efforts, and his other accents (particularly the Welsh) and dramatic narration are an admirable but ultimately fruitless effort to breathe life into stock characters and situations. Listeners tough enough to make it to the finish will be delighted to know that this is the first of a trilogy that will follow these families all the way through the twentieth century. A.B.G. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine -
Starred review from July 12, 2010
This first in a century-spanning trilogy from bestseller Follett (Eye of the Needle) makes effective and economical use of its lead characters, despite its scope and bulk. From a huge cast, eight figures emerge to play multiple roles that illustrate and often illuminate the major events, trends, and issues of the years leading up to and immediately beyond WWI: American diplomat Gus Dewar; Earl Fitzherbert, a wealthy Englishman; Fitz's sister, Lady Maud; German military attaché Walter von Ulrich; Russian brothers Grigori and Lev Peshkov; Welsh collier Billy Williams and his sister, Ethel, whom Fitz hires as a housemaid. Ingenious plotting allows Follett to explore such salient developments of the era as coal mine safety in Wales, women's suffrage, the diplomatic blundering that led to war, the horrors of trench warfare, and the triumph of the Bolsheviks. While this tome doesn't achieve the emotional depth of the best historicals, it is a remarkable and wonderfully readable synthesis of fact and fiction. 1,000,000 first printing; author tour.
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