Of course I’ve been thinking about new year’s resolutions. It’s that time, after all, however cliche it might be. I like beginnings, and I like choice. We have this whole new thing that we get to choose how to begin, how to fill . . . well, not to be too Hallmark card-y, but how to live.

A lot of the resolutions that have been bouncing around in my head are personal and uninteresting to anyone who isn’t me. And some are resolutions that I realize I make every year. Not necessarily because I fail to keep them in the previous year, but because I like to remind myself to keep going with them. Nothing’s ever really finished. One of those is not to shy away from making eye contact with people I walk by. (Unless they’re obviously crazy people, clearly.) The other is to continue to work on balancing my friends, my work, my family, and my alone time in a way that makes me feel that I’m doing my best by everyone.

But this year I’m also resolving to make time for some of the books that I own and really, really, really want to read, but haven’t yet. So here’s the list. I wonder how I’ll do!

-The Children’s Book by A. S. Byatt

-Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

-Marcelo and the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

-Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier (I promise, Angie, this is the year!)

-Bonk by Mary Roach

-Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (if I wait much longer, I think the shelf life of this one might expire)

-The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

-Jacob Have I Love by Katherine Paterson

-Ulysses by James Joyce (I read this one nearly 10 years ago in college, and am curious to see how a second time might go.)