Re-reading "The Pillars of the Earth"

It's been years since I've re-read a book. But after re-reading the Harry Potter series, I seem to have gotten into it again. I just finished re-reading Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth.

This is a fun read--one of those long, sprawling 1,000 page books with a bunch of interweaving melodramatic plot lines--but it also has some interesting history of England in the 12th century. The main through-line is centered around the building of a cathedral, but there's a lot more to it than just that. I loved it the first time and discovered it was still pretty dang good the second time.

I wanted to re-read it because I am interested in Follett's sequel, World Without End. I have no idea what that book is about, but I thought I should know where the first book left off.

It also made me interested in some medieval English political history, as it did the first time I read it. But this time I had Wikipedia handy. I started with William the Conqueror and read through the succession of English kings up through Henry VI, who became king when he was eight months old in 1422.

Maybe I'll try to go through the next 500 years of kings and queens the same way tonight.