Ocean State Libraries

#1 New York Times Bestseller
In 1989, Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, a sweeping epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected.
World Without End is its equally irresistible sequel—set two hundred years after The Pillars of the Earth and three hundred years after the

...

With the same unique vision that brought his now classic Mars trilogy to vivid life, bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson boldly imagines an alternate history of the last seven hundred years. In his grandest work yet, the acclaimed storyteller constructs a world vastly different from the one we know. . . .
“A thoughtful, magisterial alternate history from one of science fiction’s most important writers.”—The...

La moria grandissima began its terrible journey across the European and Asian continents in 1347, leaving unimaginable devastation in its wake. Five years later, twenty-five million people were dead, felled by the scourge that would come to be called the Black Death. The Great Mortality is the extraordinary epic account of the worst natural disaster in European history -- a drama of courage, cowardice, misery, madness, and sacrifice that brilliantly...

"When the Black Death enters England through the port of Melcombe in Dorseteshire in June 1348, no one knows what manner of sickness it is or how it spreads and kills so quickly. The Church cites God as the cause, and religious fear grips the people as they come to believe that the plague is a punishment for wickedness. But Lady Anne of Develish has her own ideas. Educated by nuns, Anne is a rarity among women, being both literate and knowledgeable....

Contrary to popular belief, Cantor concludes that the Black Death was probably two diseases at once--bubonic plague and anthrax. The author shows how these diseases affected the masses as well as specific individuals, and thus profoundly altered history. Benefits of the outbreak, including explosions in artistic and scientific thought, are also described.

It began like the common cold but quickly progressed to something more sinister, wiping out half of Europe's population in three years. Take a look at how the plague brought devastation and what would happen if such an epidemic were to happen today.

Killing one third of Europe's population in just three years and ravaging the flourishing cities of Italy, France, Germany, England, and Spain, the Black Death swept across the continent at an inconceivable rate. Through chilling reenactments, interviews with experts and historians, and excerpts from original accounts, discover the origins, progress, and cultural repercussions of the Plague's reign of terror. Many thought it was punishment by God,...