By Fiona Stevenson — Columnist
You know it’s January when everyone is urging New Year’s resolutions, even if by the month’s end, we can’t wait to leave them behind.
Who doesn’t flinch when confronted with a “Crush Your Goals for 2025!” headline or puzzle over how to “manifest” your future “intentions”? Who needs the disappointment of failing to do so? Aren’t most of us already more than aware of habits we should be keeping or what we need to change?
I think the best intentions are ones that will add to our enjoyment of life, and reading is the easiest of activities to inspire that.

I loved “Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts” by Oliver Burkeman (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.) I read Burkeman faithfully when he wrote his psychology pieces in The Guardian’s “This Column Will Change Your Life.” For small goals that lead to positive life changes, no one is as kind or pithy as Burkeman.
But I also liked “How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists” by Ellen Hendriksen (St. Martin’s Essentials), which is for those tough New Englanders who struggle, strive, and won’t accept failure even when the game is over. Henriksen is a local psychologist and academic, and she knows how deep a propensity for anxiety and self-punishment abounds in our neck of the woods. Note to self for 2025: Try to be nicer all around.
Does that spirit of radical independence still live from Pre-Revolutionary times? We may want to find out before the events of the 250th begin.

“American Spring: Lexington, Concord, and the Road to Revolution” by Walter R. Borneman (Back Bay Books) looks at both towns’ momentous history. Borneman’s prose style is especially accessible to high school students and those who like their history to read like a novel. Another relevant work is “1775: A Good Year for Revolution” by Kevin Phillips (Penguin), which exhaustively researches le rage militaire that swept the 13 colonies and led to our current state of preparation. Note to self: Embrace the fact Concord will be an epicenter of the celebrations of American Revolutionary spirit, grin, and bear it gracefully.
If you’re thinking of activities to do with family and friends that weekend, the Concord Museum is offering some wonderful programs that weekend if you can start planning far ahead, including lectures you can watch live or on Zoom.
To grasp how much the United States has come from the Founders’ vision, read “When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s” by John Ganz (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux). Even though that decade seems as far away sometimes as the Revolution, it’s a chilling read, especially as we were so clueless apparently about what was going on. If you feel that way when you hear the word bitcoin, I recommend “Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon” by Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton), the story of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of crypto-currency exchange FTX. He is now in prison for 25 years for money laundering, and his story is to be made into a film. Note to self: Always try to read the book before seeing the movie.

A human being and writer of inestimable worth is Eiren Caffall, a writer and musician who has produced two wonderful books in the past year.
“The Mourner’s Bestiary” (Row House) examines Monhegan Island, an ecosystem under threat, and the ocean that surrounds it in relation to the author’s personal battle with a genetic kidney disorder.
Caffall is an amateur ecologist whose thematic preoccupations continue in the fictional “All the Water in the World” (St. Martin’s). A small group of New Yorkers are living in the American Museum of Natural History as the floodwaters rise after an environmental disaster. Determined to survive, teen Nonie narrates as she and her family struggle to find new community in a cli-fi novel with strong appeal. Note to self: Repack the go bag.

“The Sinners All Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne” by Kate Winkler Dawson (G.P. Putnam’s) is for fans of history and classics you were forced to read in school. It examines both the long-ago Massachusetts murder of pregnant factory girl Sarah Maria Cornell (which inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”) and the pioneering Victorian author Catharine Read Williams, who traveled to the trial of the accused Methodist minister. She wrote a best-selling book of the episode, “Fall River: An Authentic Narrative” (Oxford), considered the first in the true crime genre. Williams, a Quaker single mother, is as fascinating as she was clever. Note to self: Read “Fall River.”
After the snow arrives and it finally feels like winter, I can’t think of a better time to read to your child from a bumper crop of beautiful new picture books celebrating the season. “Winter Light” by Aaron Becker (Candlewick) has cut-out shapes illuminating unexpected colors on white pages, or “Counting Winter” by Nancy White Carlstrom, illus. by Claudia McGehee (Eerdmans), with scratch-cut woodblock prints of scenes we can glimpse all around us.

Perhaps “The Most Beautiful Winter” by Cristina Sitja Rubio, trans. by Vineet Lal (Eerdmans) of sweatered animals enjoying cozy woodland scenes will be the book your child asks for most. And for inspiration, try “To See An Owl” by Matthew Cordell (Penguin Random House), about how determination and patience can reward a naturalist of any age. Note to self: Read aloud to a child, and make sure they see you reading, too.
I’m somewhat clueless when it comes to lifestyle books, but one that caught my eye was “Icons of Style: In 100 Garments” by Josh Sims (Laurence King) is a visual encyclopedia of clothes you wear every day. An ordinary striped T-shirt becomes much more fascinating when you see how the forces of history, culture, and labor shape what we choose to wear. Note to self: Stop wearing the same clothes every day.
I often want something in quantity when I’m reading (so I can keep on munching while I turn the pages), and “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes: 100 Easy-Peasy, Savory Recipes for 24/7 Deliciousness” by Jessie Sheehan (Countryman Press) is full of treats that can be made in small batches. My friend made me a delicious mocktail the other night, a turmeric ginger glow. Mix a glass of orange juice (or milk or Diet Coke if you don’t do OJ) with a shake of turmeric, a little fresh ginger, and a dash of club soda. I’m still glowing, and she’s promised me a pomegranate elderflower mocktail next. Note to self: Make one for myself.
Finally, I was urged to read “They Just Need To Get a Job: 15 Myths on Homelessness” by Mary Brosnahan (Beacon), former CEO of the Coalition for the Homeless. Brosnahan couldn’t care less about moralizing about our housing crisis, instead focusing on solutions for this national issue, which she provides in this short text. I also read the much-discussed Esquire article by Rhode Island journalist Patrick Fealey, whose work I have long read in the Boston Globe. His account of being homeless in New England is illuminating and memorable. Note to self: Be grateful, and do more to help in the new year.
