Pillars

I'm reading a massive book by Ken Follet call "Pillars of the Earth". I had the book on my wishlist for months because I hated to invest in a book that I wouldn't listen to. I finally bit the bullet last month and I started listening to it this week and it's hard to turn my mp3 player off.
The description was a little "iffy" because it's about a guy many centuries ago that dreamed of building a Cathedral. I read the reviews and they were all great. That's usually a good sign. Sometimes a bad author can put out a book and get all his friends to give it great reviews and it will slide by for a while, but when you get consistently great reviews, that's a decent indicator that it really is a good book.
I'm only about a third of the way through it so I can't give a resounding two thumbs up just yet, but unless the author disappoints me in the remaining pages, I will definitely give it a good review.
What's interesting about Follet is that he was a successful "thriller" author. He had had a lot of success, but he wanted to write a "bigger" novel. Everyone tried to discourage him, but he persisted.
The book got luke warm reviews and didn't chart that well at first, but something remarkable happened. Word of mouth, which in my opinion is the best kind of advertising, kicked in and made the book a classic.
Again, I'm not finished yet, but I feel pretty sure you'll be hearing more good stuff about this book soon.