Follett has called "The Pillars of the Earth," a love story set in England in the 12th century, his favorite novel. According to his Web site, the book still sells around 100,000 copies a year in the United States alone.

"My publishers were a little nervous about such a very unlikely subject but paradoxically, it is my most popular book," Follett writes on his Web site.

"It's also the book I'm most proud of. It recreates, quite vividly, the entire life of the village and the people who live there. You feel you know the place and the people as intimately as if you yourself were living there in the middle ages."