I've been getting a great head start on my New Year's Resolution to "organize, organize, organize". I'm not saying that if you walked in my door you'd think you'd stepped into the world of Martha Stewart, but I've been tackling the disarray a little bit at a time - a pile here, and a pile there. And I have to say that with every trash bag taken outside, and with every bag of clothes taken to the Salvation Army, it is like a weight off my shoulders.

Now, if it was only this easy to unclutter my waist line . . .

I've been reading this year at a record setting (for me) pace, and recently started my 110th book*, World Without End by Ken Follett. This is a sequel to his opus, Pillars of the Earth, that I read in 1991.

As described in the book's synopsis, "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. Critics were overwhelmed-"it will hold you, fascinate you, surround you" (Chicago Tribune)-and readers everywhere hoped for a sequel.

"World Without End takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroad of new ideas-about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race-the Black Death."

The audio book is 44 hours long, but is pretty gripping so far, so it should be a good read/listen.





* Books read in 2007

Simisola
Lonesome Dove - audio
Black Orchids - audio
A Comedian Dies - audio
What Came Before He Shot Her
And Then There Were None - audio
The Big Four - audio
The Mysterious Mr. Quinn - audio
And Be a Villain - audio
The Blade Itself - audio
The Moonstone - audio
4:50 from Paddington - audio
Road Rage
Before Midnight - audio
Shopgirl - audio
Bloomsday Dead - audio
American Pastoral - audio
The First Cut
The Right Attitude to Rain - audio
Wednesday’s Child
Dead Center - audio
I, Claudius - audio
Painted Veil - audio
Well Schooled in Murder
The Shifting Fog - audio
A Great Deliverance
Dracula - audio
Innocent Traitor - audio
The Strange Case of Cr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Mistress of the Art of Death - audio
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
Sin Killer - audio
Moral Disorder and Other Stories - audio
Simple Genius - audio
The Observations - audio
The Watchman
Dead Man’s Folly - audio
The Ballad of the Flim Flam Man
Whose Body? - audio
A Deadly Shade of Gold
The Daughters of Cain - audio
Me Talk Pretty One Day
Murder in Belleville
Murder by the Book - audio
The Looming Towers - audio
Jack Maggs - audio
Wise Blood
Can’t Wait To Get To Heaven - audio
Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates - audio
Requiem for an Assassin - audio
Look to the Lady
Obsession - audio
Devil of Nanking - audio
The Water is Lovely - audio
The Wandering Hills - audio
A Stabbing in the Stables - audio
Crusader’s Cross - audio
By Sorrow’s River - audio
Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows
The Old Man and the Boy
Folly and Glory - audio
Pegasus Descending - audio
Death of a Maid
The Plot Against America
The Faithful Spy - audio
Tin Roof Blowdown - audio
The Naval Treaty - audio
The Perfect Paragon - audio
The Queen’s Fool
Mad Mouse - audio
The Sherlock Holmes Collection - audio
Into the Wild - audio
Tilt-a-Whirl - audio
On the Road - audio
Whack-a-Mole - audio
From Doon with Death
The Careful Use of Compliments - audio
Injustice for All - audio
The House Sitter - audio
Fifty-Seven Heaven
Everyone Dies - audio
Diamond Dust - audio
Capote
Ulysses - audio
Death of a Snob
The Sex Lives of Cannibals
Killer on the Road
Jeeves and the Mating Season - audio
How Right You Are, Jeeves - audio
Playing for Pizza
Dexter After Dark - audio
The Winter Queen
No Country for Old Men - audio
Love Over Scotland
Slay Ride - audio
Persuasion - audio
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - audio
I, Richard - audio
A Christmas Carol - audio
Shakespeare - the World as Stage - audio
I am America - and So Can You! - audio
A Redbird Christmas - audio
Hell for the Holidays - audio
Big Numbers
Holiday on Ice - audio
A Christmas Story - audio
The Real James Herriot
Jolie Blon’s Bounce - audio
Hide - audio
World Without End - audio