Books That Will Make You Want to Visit Cathedrals in Britain

This Michener-esque "sweeping saga of the area surrounding Stonehenge" follows five families (really, the lineage of five groups) through 10,000 years of history.

I've read this three times — once as a young teenager, once as an older teenager, once as an adult — and each time the epic proportions spoke to me. It is niche historical fiction on a small time scale, presented as if it is a galactic story on a millennial scale. (I actually just bought another copy, so I can delve in again.) I can partially credit this book for sparking my early desires to travel; my first trip to Europe involved seeing the Sagrada Familia, one of the few great cathedrals still under initial construction. I was thrilled to see real "pillars of the earth" visible and still buttressed by scaffolding. Amazing story, but even more so were the imagery and presentation of a time past.