6 Books That’ll Help You Start Your Year Off Right

As someone who’s a sucker for a fresh start, but who has also never experienced a failure small enough to not induce an existential crisis, New Year’s resolutions are tricky. So this year, I’m taking a new approach: loose-y goose-y. No quantifiable goals, more vibes than data. I don’t want to exercise X days a week; I want to find new ways to move my body. I’m not going to promise myself a bi-weekly game night, but maybe if I keep in better touch with my friends I can convince them to come over and play my board game about birds one day. Most importantly, I’m not going to hold myself to reading a certain number of books—I’m not even going to track them. Just typing that feels scary. What of the archives?? I’ll probably remember the books I love or write about — see below! — or those that have space on my bookshelf. Surely I’ll forget some, and what then? It won’t have diminished the experience of reading them, and it’s better than letting something I love turn into a chore or an obligation. If I have any book-related resolution it’s to keep reading, full stop, and to appreciate the gift of even having the time to do so.

The books below are perfect for the short days of winter. Some are moody and darkly funny — an espionage thriller about a dysfunctional group of disgraced MI5 agents, a collection of absurdist techno-dystopian short stories. Others are brilliant examinations of power and systems of oppression — a difficult but poignant Civil Rights-era historical novel, a foundational text on maternal ambivalence. For those who, like me, have any money–related resolutions (whether loosey-goosey or more specific) there’s also the least intimidating personal finance book I’ve ever read. Regardless, they’re all great books to start your year with, whether or not they’re added to a tally.

Something Old

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

I was in a bit of a rut when a friend texted to recommend Mick Herron’s British cop thriller series Slough House, and what a gift that text was! I sped through the first book, Slow Horses, which introduces a ragtag group of MI5 agents who’ve made mistakes bad enough to be exiled to the “Slough House.” These disgraced agents are mostly tasked with grunt work, but when River Cartwright—an ambitious nepo baby who bungled a training exercise—starts to suspect a connection between the kidnapping of a young Pakistani man and a journalist who’s been under MI5 surveillance, he and his cohort get in over their heads. It’s darkly funny and a fantastic portrayal of both corruption and what life looks like after you’re sure that yours is over. A bonus: The series has recently been adapted for Apple TV+.

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution by Adrienne Rich

Having actively sought out critical examinations of motherhood since becoming a mother myself four years ago, I was both surprised and excited to learn I’d missed a foundational book in the genre: feminist poet Adrienne Rich’s National Book Award–winning Of Woman Born, published in 1976. Despite its age, it’s remarkably relevant. Rich combines politics, theory, history, and her own diary to examine the systems that circumscribe motherhood, how those systems lead to internalized expectations, and the quiet experience of maternal ambivalence. These discussions might not be quite so taboo anymore, but they’re still necessary. I found my 1977 edition in an incredibly charming café/used bookstore called Jeffersonville Bake Shop, but W.W. Norton released a new edition with a foreword by Eula Biss in 2021.

Homeward by Angela Jackson-Brown

It might seem a little bonkers to call a book that came out three months ago “old,” but there are only so many opportunities to recommend a book that isn’t brand spanking new, and I need to recommend Homeward. The Civil Rights-era novel follows Rose Perkins Bourdon, a young Black woman who pushes herself out of her comfort zone when the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s voter registration campaign comes to her Georgia hometown. Meticulously researched, the novel imagines interactions that real historical figures like Martin Luther King and John Lewis might have had with those fighting alongside them. It’s a tough read at times, as Rose is saddled with devastating loss — she’s one of those characters who experiences so much tragedy that you find yourself begging the author to give her a break — but the trauma is true to the violence Black Americans experienced in the 1960s. Rose’s pain isn’t an end in itself, either: it’s a necessary factor of her rediscovery and reclamation of herself.

Something New

Your Utopia by Bora Chung

Short story collections are easy to put down one day and then forget to ever pick up again, but I promise you won’t be able to stop thinking about Korean author Bora Chung’s Your Utopia until you finish it, and maybe even not then. The book introduces an assortment of uncanny, bizarre, Black Mirror-esque possible futures, explored at moments familiar to our current reality: at a fundraiser gala for The Center for Immortality Research, in an elevator run by AI that’s falling in love with one of the riders, or in a hospital room where police scan a comatose woman’s memories to build a criminal case against her. Chung’s worlds are lived-in, and these stories aren’t exceptional to the people inside of them. This ramps up the discomfort, but the eeriness is balanced by surprising humor and heart.

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

When crime author Ernest Cunningham is invited to speak at a prominent mystery writers’ convention held on a train, the journey turns into a locked-room mystery in its own right — and the basis for Ernest’s second novel, which we are presumably reading. It’s a murder mystery, but it’s also about writing a murder mystery, and this self-aware, tongue-in-cheek tone is set from the start: the prologue—an email from Ernest to his editor—opens with the line, “It’s a hard no on the prologue, I’m afraid.” Ernest goes on to describe the scene he refuses to write (“the strewn sheets, the upturned mattress, the bloodied handprint…”) and explain why he is refusing (“feels a bit cheap”) but, of course, we are all in on the joke. Genre tropes might be eyeroll-inducing, but they’re tropes for a reason: They work. We’re hooked. Stevenson has crafted an artful puzzle and a sharp send-up of the genre—smart, but never too clever for its own good.

Something Out of the Blue

I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi; plus I Will Teach You to Be Rich: The Journal

Throughout the past three years I, like many, have fallen deeper and deeper into debt. This will be my second time digging myself out, but I also want it to be my last. Some of my debt is from factors outside of my control, but a lot comes from impractical spending habits I’ve failed to face head-on (it’s scary!) as well as the misguided belief that fixing my money situation requires becoming a financial expert. When my therapist recommended Sethi’s book, which walks you through a six-week program to create a manageable money system, I was skeptical. And, look, I’ll be honest: It’s imperfect. It’s often corny. There are aspects of Sethi’s economic ideologies that I fundamentally disagree with. But getting as much control over your finances as you can is crucial, and Sethi’s program is accessible, shame-free, and, most importantly, doable. The journal is a bonus with exercises and prompts designed to help you understand the point of all this work: figuring out what you want to do with the money you have.