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I’m not a huge believer in new year’s resolutions — they always feel like set ups for failure and disappointment instead of the well-meaning self-bettering they’re intended to be. However, I do believe in the fresh promise of a new year and taking the opportunity to deliberately (and gently) think about your routines and what you might be missing.

I also believe in balance, and that for every good, new routine, you deserve to add in a little bad, too. Toward that end, I’ve pulled together this list of books — books that might help you achieve that goal of cooking more or moving more or cleaning more — and paired them with novels that dig at the flip side of these resolutions — novels where characters don’t cook, don’t move, and don’t clean.

Happy New Year!! Let’s ring it in by being both better and worse.

Built to Move

I work from home, which means I spend most of my time sitting hunched over in a chair in front of my monitor. And then, when I clock out, I move over to my couch and sit there for a long time. Rinse, repeat, etcetera. This is a book that’s meant to counteract all of that time spent sitting in one position (which it turns out, shocker, isn’t super healthy for your body!). Mobility experts Kelly and Juliet Starrett have pulled together 10 tests and 10 physical practices to get your body feeling better, more capable, and even maybe a little stronger. Sounds like a perfect, non-demanding book to try and bring into my new year.

The New Me

Millie, the protagonist of Halle Butler’s hilarious and biting The New Me could definitely benefit from a book like Built to Move, in my opinion. Or maybe not! Maybe it would just serve as another empty promise on top of all the other empty promises she’s staring down the barrel of: will a new job actually make her life more fulfilling? Will she finally sign up for that yoga class she’s been meaning to sign up for? There’s so much Millie should be doing; the joy of this book is the utter chaos of sometimes trying, and sometimes not trying so hard, to have a better life, and the realization that no matter how hard you try, things might still go to shit anyway.

Start Here

This cookbook promises to be a cooking education worthy of cooking school, but without all the debt (literally! Sohla wrote this in her intro to the book). The book is so pleasingly heavy and filled with so many photos — step-by-step photos of how to do puff pastry, for example — it’s a beautiful object, in addition to being practical and filled-to-bursting with kitchen know-how. I like to think that I’m already pretty good in the kitchen, but there’s always room to improve, and Start Here is perfect for all levels of chef and will absolutely help you meet any goals you might have to improve your cooking skills in the new year.

Nightbitch

The titular Nightbitch would probably flip right to the meat-cooking sections of Start Here, and then get frustrated that recipes that involve meat tend to emphasize the cooking of said meat, instead of recommending you eat them raw. Nightbitch’s problem, of course, is she’s a mother and she’s begun to suspect that she’s turning into a dog at night. Her instincts have turned feral and her entire world seems tinged with violence. A delightfully unhinged read.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

Continuing the trend of “university-style education without the debt” — in this book, the inimitable George Saunders compiles a handful of lectures that he’s given on the craft of Russian authors. It’s an incredible look into an author’s brain, how he approaches writing, and how he reads as a writer, with interstitial chapters about how he came to writing and his own process. It’s an incredibly generous work that feels deeply educational, whether you’re coming to it as someone who wants to write more, as someone who wants to read deeper, or as someone who just likes books and wants to read about books. Also, if you’re an audiobook person, the audiobook is very good and very recommended.

Penance

But maybe you’re more interested in writing that’s slippery and subjective and deeply flawed in the way of humans. In that case — check out Penance! A novel styled after true crime narratives that looks at a cast of characters, in this case a group of teens (some troubled, some confused, all with the hazy seeing-what-they-want-to-see lenses of teens) who are caught in the middle of a very disturbing murder case. I recommended this book to a friend recently and she texted me one morning, saying she’d stayed up until 2 a.m. the night before because she couldn’t put it down. I promise you’ll be swept up in the prickly perceptions of what may or may not have happened before and after the murder, and what may or may not be a lie, told by the true crime reporter compiling all of the various stories.

For more: Powell’s Q&A: Eliza Clark, author of ‘Penance’

Be a Revolution

Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race, returns with Be a Revolution, a book that shows how individuals are fighting against systemic racism, ableism, the carceral state, and so many more inequities that are baked into the world around us. It’s never the wrong time to get more involved in your community and Be a Revolution shows us a way forward, via intersectionality as well as individual and collective action.

Yellowface

Or, instead, you could read Yellowface, a book that looks at racism in book publishing via a white author who steals an Asian author’s manuscript and passes it off as her own — to much acclaim! But, of course, said (deeply unlikable) white author finds herself in a paranoid spiral, determined to keep her secret a secret, no matter what it takes. I don’t know if ‘fun’ is quite the right word for Yellowface, but I still couldn’t put this one down. Kuang nailed it.

Saving Time

In her newest book, Saving Time, Jenny Odell looks at society’s perception of time — and how “time is money” became so widely accepted as truth. She takes on our obsession with productivity and how the idea of “leisure time” is often looked down on. It’s never a bad time to do the work to decouple yourself from society’s expectations of time management and squeezing every possible product from every possible second.

For more: Powell's Picks Spotlight: Jenny Odell’s 'Saving Time’

The Guest

The protagonist of Emma Cline’s latest maybe learned the wrong lesson from Odell's previous book, How to Do Nothing. A young twenty-something grifter is set adrift in the Hamptons, where she does her best to glom onto any group that will have her, until they realize she’s not who she says she is, and she’s forced to try again with someone else. She swims naked in stranger’s pools, steals pills and jewelry, compounds lies with more lies. An antihero for the ages.

For more: Powell's Picks Spotlight: Emma Cline's 'The Guest'

Middlemarch

Maybe your resolution for the new year is to finally get around to reading one of those big, project books you’ve always meant to read but never quite had time for. I did that a couple years ago with Middlemarch, an experience I found very rewarding, even if it did take me three months to finish. Middlemarch is a classic for a reason — a funny, masterful, and deeply drawn portrait of a small community and the lives and loves and tribulations of the people that live there.

Throne of Glass

OR you could read something that’s just as many pages, but perhaps reads a bit quicker and is thoroughly delicious? Just because you’ve finished ACOTAR doesn’t mean you should give up on Sarah J. Maas!! She’s got other series for you to be obsessing over, like this one, which predates ACOTAR. The Throne of Glass series has it all: conspiracies, assassins, corrupt kingdoms, thieves, magic, castles, and more! Guaranteed to fill the ACOTAR-shaped hole in your heart. `

Shitty Craft Club

2024: the year of embracing fun and mess over perfection!! In this delightful book, Sam Reece has created a feel-good guide to crafting that encourages chaos and joy. The crafts in this book are filled with glitter and beads and rhinestone shrimp. A great antidote to the burnout I know we’re all feeling.

The Vegetarian

While we’re on the topic of crafting, let’s talk The Vegetarian! Which includes a fair amount of body paint (a craft!), one stop of many on Yeong-hye's attempts to escape her blood-soaked dreams. This book is ecstatic and unnerving; it’s fantastical and filled with a sense of bone-deep dread. A great antidote to any feel-good antidotes.

How to Keep House While Drowning

This book was incredibly important to me last year, and I’m looking forward to bringing the lessons I learned from it into the new year — lessons about how care tasks are morally neutral (i.e. I'm not a terrible person if I don’t do the dishes immediately), how to prioritize care for yourself when you’re exhausted or out-of-sorts, and simple methods for how to get things done when getting things done is incredibly unappealing. KC Davis really delivers on the promise of her book’s subtitle: “a gentle approach to cleaning and organizing.”

For more: Powell's Q&A: KC Davis, author of 'How to Keep House While Drowning'

Housekeeping

Of course, sometimes the only answer for how to keep house while drowning, is to just go ahead and drown the house too. Marilynne Robinson is maybe one of the greatest living writers alive today, and this book is one of her most indelible. If you’re going to ignore the dishes in your sink and the laundry that still needs to be folded and put away, this is the perfect book to keep you occupied.

Goblin Mode

Goblin Mode speaks to my soul. I want to thrive in the muck. I want to embrace my mess and chaos, while "hanging on to a little joy" (as the publisher copy says). I do think that if you're going to have a resolution for 2024, this is the perfect book for you to find that resolution in. Build a moss garden. Forage for berries. Chase joy.

Jawbone

You know who thrives in chaos and muck? The characters in Mónica Ojeda's Jawbone. This is such a strange, wonderful, prickly book. For anyone who would like their eerie campus novel to have a side of creepypasta and/or Moby-Dick. For anyone who revels in books that inhabit that gray zone of morality. For anyone who misses those intense friendship-bonds formed when you’re younger and convinced of your immortality. Icky! Perfect!