Sarum

The Novel of England

By: Edward Rutherfurd

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 45 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

In Sarum, Edward Rutherfurd weaves a compelling saga of five English families whose fates become intertwined over the course of centuries. While each family has its own distinct characteristics, the successive generations reflect the changing character of Britain. We become drawn not only into the fortunes of the individual family members, but also the larger destinies of each family line.

Meticulously researched and epic in scope, Sarum covers the entire sweep of English civilization: from the early hunters and farmers, the creation of Stonehenge, the dawn of Christianity, and the Black Death; through the Reformation, the wars in America, the Industrial Age, and the Victorian social reforms; up through the World War II invasion of Normandy and the modern-day concerns of a once-preeminent empire.

©1987 Edward Rutherfurd (P)1994 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Nadia May is ideal; her British accents fit the locale, and her pacing and characterizations are smooth, unobtrusive and compelling. The ease of her reading leads the listener to forget she is there, the sign of the perfect narrator.” ( AudioFile)

If you like Michener...

The book goes from prehistoric times to the 1980's- then abruptly ends . There is great detail about family trees & history until the mid-1800's- then just barely touches the connections. Tremendous history book- but it is very, very long in places

Brilliant capture of historic region.

Rutherford’s research and intertwining of families, places, religious and political situations brings to life a hallowed snippet of English life. Getting to ‘know’ a few families and how they built the region of Sarum makes this compelling reading. I read the book twice over the years and am most delighted to have found an audio version to take with me and listen to over and over. Well done.

Slogging through

NOTE: I'm NOT finished reading this book so a review isn't exactly fair, but I'm using my review to determine if I'm actually going to finish this book or not. Granted, I could probably just write down my thoughts in my own private journal, but A. I do not have a journal, I have Facebook, and B. Why not work out my own stuff for the whole world to see? That's just my twisted philosophy.

I want to love this book. I really do. I love all things Great Britain, and when I saw this book spanning 20,000 years of my favorite topic, SCORE, right? Well, maybe not so much. I came into this book knowing that I might fall in love with characters only to have my hopes dashed to the ground when moving on to the next era...I got that going in. And I also get that we are going to move pretty quickly from generation to generation. I prepared myself for that. We have a LOT of centuries to get through. Heh. All this said, I'm in the era of Portius, and honestly asking myself, can I really listen to Wanda McCaddon slog through this?

DETOUR--->I'm also listening to Wanda read A Distant Mirror--The Calamitous 14th Century, and I want to poke my own eyeballs out hearing her crazy-making voice. At the end of each sentence, I find myself leaning forward...are we at the end of a paragrap? Concluding a chapter? Is there a break between ideas? Alas, no. 'tis only Wanda swallowing before her next fricking sentence. Wanda McCaddon, I adore your accent and your enthusiasm, but I cannot abide your reading style. Continuity and fluidity are your friends. Get to know them.

BACK ON TRACK---> A the end of the day, I don't think my resistance to listening to Sarum is Wanda's voice...I can live with it. Look, I have raised step-kids for 17 years who have a mom crazier than a ___house rat, so I can put up with dang near anything. I just don't know if I have the stamina to hang with Rutherfurd through all the centuries. I'm falling in love with and getting invested in...well, I would write the names, but since I'm LISTENING to this story I have no idea how to spell any of them, but you get my point...we then jump the track and fall in love and/or hate a whole new batch of characters. Um, I should add that I just finished Pillars for the second time and have read World Without End, so there's my bias. See? There's a reason for everything. When Pillars was over I cried for a week. Yes. I am that unstable.

However...I am intrigued by Rutherfurd's take on the history of England. Yes, I get that it is fiction, I GET it, but still. I'm fascinated by how it might have all gone down, and I'm finding myself pretty excited about getting into the Tudor era, even though I know it will only last five minutes.

So, all this said, I will slog on. I do a lot of driving for my work and do a lot of walking for my sanity, so I believe I'm going to finish this book. I'm committed. But I'm not saying I'm going to be happy about it. And I don't know what the heck I'm going to do about A Distant Mirror. She's way worse listening to on that book. But that's a review for a different day.

The end felt rushed

Huge amount of time spent at the beginning with subsequent chapters becoming shorter and shorter. It felt uneven and was as though the author was running out of steam. Paris was a much much better listen.

As always, absorbing, entertaining., informative

I enjoyed this as I have London and Paris. I gave the story 4 stars instead of 5 because I felt that the continuity between generations was better in these latter two, especially Paris. I intend to read all of the works by this author.

A long tedious slog

I’m glazed over by the experience of listening to Sarum. It was a slow paced narrative that
never reached it’s potential. I’m mad at myself for sticking it out; I should have bailed on it.

What I Expected

Having read other Rutherford books, "Sarum" was no surprise. The narrator isn't a favorite for me, which does detract from listening to such a long novel.

Great historical fiction

Love historical fiction and this has plenty of both history and fiction. Traces the areas history from prehistory to present day including lines of families and their physical traits even. Loved it so much I've listened three times to this since purchase a few years ago.

It's okay

I really struggled to finish this. The reader was excellent, the subject matter was interesting...but the writing style was just too dry for me. I found myself paying more attention to the historical notes than the actual storylines.

A wealth of entertainment

It was such a delight to follow the families of Sarum and how they and the land evolved. America’s distant cousins🙂