As the new year resolutions begin to hurt, our podcast team are on hand to guide you through some of the books which might – or might not – help you to stick to them. Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman offers an ironist's guide to the Mind, Body and Spirit shelves, while novelist Tim Parks talks about the book that helped him through a period of chronic pain.
Plus, Professor John Sutherland gives John Crace a tutorial on the highs and lows of literary criticism, from Johnson to Derrida, and explains why nobody should be afraid of words like heteroglossia.
Reading list
50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know by John Sutherland (Quercus)
Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done by Oliver Burkeman (Canongate)
Twelve Steps for a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong (Bodley Head)
Getting Things Done by David Allen (Piatkus)
Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart by Gordan Livingston (Hodder Mobius)
Teach Us to Sit Still by Tim Parks (Harvill Secker)
A Headache in the Pelvis by David Wise (Perfect Paperback)
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (Bantam)
I Can Make You Happy by Paul McKenna (Bantam)
Love's Work by Gillian Rose (NYRB Classics)
Letters from a Stoic by Seneca (Penguin Classics)
Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers (Vermilion)
Ending the Pursuit of Happiness by Barry Magid (Wisdom Publications)
The "Rabbit" books by John Updike (Penguin)
Diary Drawings by Bobby Baker (Profile)
